Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I had the privilege of addressing a rally outside Parliament House. It was a rally organised by many members of the Chinese diaspora in Australia. They were rallying to call on the Australian government to boycott the Beijing Olympics. There is no doubt that being given the privilege of hosting an Olympic Games provides great prestige and honour. It allows the government to showcase itself to the rest of the world and also domestically. It has the potential to be of great propaganda value for a particular regime.

Talking to the regime of which speak—namely, the dictatorship in China—we've got to ask a few fundamental questions. Those questions revolve around the question: is this dictatorship, with all its egregious human rights abuses, worthy of hosting an Olympic Games? If the International Olympic Committee determines it is so worthy, then the question needs to be asked: what should Australia do in that regard?

It is my very strong view that a boycott of some form or another should be applied. The reason is quite simple. Might I say that, while it is my view, it was also the view expressed by the substantial crowd of the Chinese diaspora outside Parliament House yesterday. The human rights abuses are egregious. They're there for all to see. In Hong Kong, there are the pro-democracy Hongkongers being brutally dealt with by the regime, on the back of the regime ripping up an international agreement that it signed with the United Kingdom and that was sanctioned by the United Nations. This showed a complete disregard for international law and international agreements and for abiding by their own agreements that they had signed off on. More importantly, it showed a complete disregard for the human rights of its own citizens.

We then move to the Chinese mainland proper. What do we see? We see house Christians being persecuted, Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted, Uighurs being persecuted—one million of them in concentration camps—forced sterilisation and slave labour. There are land grabs in the South China Sea islands. The list goes on and on. There are cyberattacks that are emanating from China. In relation to the Falun Gong, there is very well established forced organ harvesting against the practitioners of that particular belief system.

The world should not stand idly by and say, 'We will turn a blind eye to these egregious human rights abuses,' and say that the Olympics can go on as though there's nothing to be seen in China. We are dealing with a brutal, belligerent regime that has no regard for its international obligations, be it with the United Kingdom over Hong Kong or with Australia over our barley or wine trade or in relation to intellectual property rights. The list goes on and on. I simply say to the people of Australia and to my own government: it is worthy of consideration to boycott the Olympics in 2022.

I have started a petition to entice Australians to give voice to that view should they be so minded. To access the petition, Australians can go online to the website change.org and search the words 'Abetz Olympics' to find the petition, which they can then sign. I would urge all my fellow Australians that have a genuine heart and concern for their fellow human beings suffering under the brutal regime in China to sign the petition.