Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): This week I moved a motion calling on the Australian government to boycott the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Liberal Party voted to block me, even debating it. Apparently not only is it fine to go to China and treat it like a normal country but it's not fine to debate it. This is the view of the party of small government. What happened to that famous commitment to individual freedom?

Some would say that the best way to resolve our differences with China is through diplomacy, but sending our athletes to China is an act of diplomacy as well as anything else. It is an act that says to the people of Hong Kong, 'Move along; nothing to see here; sorry about that, guys,' and says to the Christians in China, who face persecution for practising their faith, that the treatment they get from their government is legitimate. Is that really something you in the Liberal Party are comfortable saying?

The actions of the Chinese Communist Party should send shivers down the spine of every person in this place. It shouldn't matter what political party you belong to. Forced labour camps have been used in the deliberate, calculated, industrial-scale persecution of ethnic minorities in China. As for military aggression, China defines what it can do based on what it can get away with. Every Australian that goes to China gets told they do so at their own risk. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns everybody that if you're an Australian travelling to China you are at risk of being locked up for no reason. Pro-democracy activists are violently suppressed. Religious freedom is non-existent. It censors its media. There is no freedom of speech. Nobody in China can access anything that criticises the leadership of the CPP. China hacked the very building we're debating this motion in.

It is not racist to stick up for the rights of people who can't stick up for themselves. I'm not opposed to what is going on in China because I hate Chinese people. If anything, it's the opposite. I think the people of China deserve the sorts of basic rights and freedoms that I have, that everyone of you in this chamber has. It takes a special kind of xenophobia to say that people who are Chinese don't deserve the freedoms we've all got here. I think the things I treasure about life in Australia are so good that more people should get to enjoy them. I think the people of China deserve to enjoy them, too. I think they deserve better than the Chinese Communist Party that they get, a party that bans you from criticising it and bans you from running against it. It controls your speech, your thoughts, your faith, your friendships, your culture, your career, your life. The people of China deserve better than that. They deserve better than the CPP in China and they deserve better than a government and an opposition in Australia that says, 'We can't debate a motion to boycott a massive marketing exercise for the CCP.' Your silence isn't going to hold forever. Sooner or later, you've got to stand up for what you stand for. That's our right here. It is not a right available in China, though. That alone should be enough of a reason to stop treating it like it's just another country. I will tell you this much: if the only time you defend the values you hold dear is when it doesn't make anybody else uncomfortable, then you really don't hold those values dear, do you? If you only care when it's convenient, then you don't care at all.

We should boycott the Winter Olympics in Beijing because we have credibility, and I don't want Australia's credibility being linked to a regime that locks up journalists, sticks ethnic minorities in forced labour camps and ruthlessly suppresses freedom of religion, speech, thought and association. We should stand up for what we think is worth standing up for. Treating China like every other country is flattering; it's not like every other country. With any other country, you'd go to their Olympics, you'd make your point, you'd leave and you'd move on. You can't do that with China, though, can you? You must be kidding yourself. They want us there because they know it would be embarrassing to their ruling regime if we said: 'No thanks, see you later. Not interested.' We're not obliged to attend the Olympics to spare its host some embarrassment. You know what I would be more embarrassed by? I would be more embarrassed by the slave labour that's going on over there.

I want to move onto Veterans' Affairs now and Defence, and the so-called commissioner. The Minister for Defence gave the game away on the Morrison government's half-hearted plans to address veteran suicides when she appeared at Senate estimates last month. She slipped up and accidentally told us that the Morrison government's supposedly independent interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention isn't so independent after all. As a matter of fact, it's not independent at all. In fact, Senator Reynolds revealed that the interim commissioner, Ms Bernadette Boss, is actually a good mate of hers. How about that—jobs for mates. They met in the Army and they've known each other for 20 years. They're friends; they're mates. Not only is Ms Boss Senator Reynolds's mate; she has the defence minister to thanks for landing her that plum little role. How about that? While the Attorney was hiring, Senator Reynolds had a chat with Ms Boss, asked her if she'd be keen, and sent her CV and a personal recommendation through to Minister Porter, who then decided to give her that lovely little gig. Let's break that down. The interim commissioner is supposed to be conducting an independent review of how the actions of Veterans' Affairs and Defence have contributed to veteran suicides. Ms Boss should be working with affected families, hearing their stories and using what she finds to advise the national commissioner the following year. How can that happen when the Minister for Defence and Ms Boss have known each other for 20 years? How can that happen when Ms Boss owes her new sweet gig to the same person she is supposed to be investigating? How can anyone believe that the national commissioner is truly independent from the government when Minister Reynolds put her forward for the plum job?

Here's the thing: the Morrison government likes to say that their idea of a national commissioner is better than a royal commission. They keep telling us that it will be an independent review of the causes and prevention of defence personnel and veterans suicide, but what the Morrison government has served us up has nothing to do with that whatsoever. It has nothing to do with properly addressing the causes of veterans suicide. It isn't about taking action or drawing a line in the sand so we can start afresh. This is about this government wanting to find any excuse whatsoever—to the point it's becoming embarrassing for the coalition—not to call a royal commission into their own. They don't want to do things the right way and call for a full investigation because they're scared of what a proper royal commission will uncover. I'm telling you, you should be scared. You should be frightened as hell, because what's going to come out of it will blow you away. They know that pulling up that carpet and having a look at what's been swept under it won't be good for them.

If you need any more proof of that, go back and take a look at what the Prime Ministerial Advisory Council on Veterans' Mental Health said in July last year about calls for a royal commission. At that time, people from all sides of the veterans community were crying out for the government to do something to stem the tide of veterans suicides, as they are now. Instead of taking those people seriously and giving them the respect they deserve, the Prime Minister's council was worried about the effect a royal commission would have on the reputation of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. They talked it over and came up with the decision that a royal commission would make Veterans' Affairs look really bad. They said it would be a waste of money. They said it would be a waste of time, and they concluded that they'd prefer to run another review instead. They made it clear they wanted any other model except for the one thing that would fix it—a royal commission.

A few short months after the Prime Minister got that advice from his counsel, Defence and Veterans' Affairs set to work designing alternative options to a royal commission. They worked so hard, in fact, that the defence minister saw fit to thank the public officials from Defence and Veterans' Affairs for 'their expertise and their dedication and their passion for developing this policy package over the summer months'. This is where we're at. This national commission was designed by Defence and Veterans' Affairs as a cheaper, easier and softer alternative to a royal commission—and to bring on more suicides, because that's what it will do.

It remains an agency of the government, and the government can hire and fire whoever it wants. It is not independent. Defence and Veterans' Affairs are so close in how they're run that we now know the interim commissioner was put forward by the defence minister, her good friend, the very person she is supposed to be holding to account. Our veterans deserve better than this; they deserve some respect and they deserve a royal commission—nothing short of that. Nothing but a royal commission can solve the problem of veterans suicides. Nothing else has the independence to call things out as the commissioner sees it. Nothing else will truly give the trust and independence that we veterans want so we can finally get something done with this.