Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator McKim, move:

That the Senate—

(a) congratulates refugee Mr Behrouz Boochani on winning Australia's richest literary award, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature, as well as claiming $25,000 for first place in the category of non-fiction;

(b) recognises that Mr Boochani won the literary prizes for his memoir, No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison, which was written on a mobile phone and charts his flight from Iran and his experiences in offshore detention;

(c) notes that Mr Boochani described his win as "It is a victory not only for us, but for literature and art, and above all, it is a victory for humanity – a victory for human beings and human dignity ... A victory against a system that has never recognised us as human beings. It is a victory against a system that has reduced us to numbers. This is a beautiful moment."; and

(d) expresses its dismay that Mr Boochani was not able to attend the awards ceremony as the Iranian-Kurdish journalist remains on Manus Island where he has been in detention since 2013.

Question agreed to.