Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens believe that universal human rights are fundamental and must be respected and protected in all countries and for all people. Unfortunately, across the world the rights to freedom, dignity and equality of so many people are under threat, and it is so vital for us to advocate for the rights of people in Australia and overseas, to highlight the incredible resilience of advocacy work of on-the-ground activists, campaigners and journalists and to stand in solidarity with them in their crusade for justice and truth telling.

Tonight, I will first draw attention to Australia's own need to recognise the rights of all people, including trans, gender diverse and intersex people and all LGBTIQA+ people, to live with dignity, be seen, be affirmed and be celebrated for who they are. Celebrating and upholding the rights of all people to live lives free from discrimination stands in stark contrast to the approach of this government with its religious discrimination bill, which we have just seen the text of tonight. We're still analysing the bill, but it's clear that this is legislation that would increase discrimination rather than decrease it. It would increase discrimination against LGBTIQA+ people, against women, against people with disabilities and against people of minority faiths. It would override hard-fought antidiscrimination legislation in the states and territories, including section 17 of the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits speech that offends, insults or humiliates people based on other characteristics, such as race, age, sex or disability.

This bill says that statements of belief will not be considered to be discrimination. What does this mean? It means that it would be legal for single mothers to be berated as sinners; for women to be admonished that they should submit to their husbands; or for women who choose to terminate a pregnancy to be told that they will be going to hell. It means that it would be legal for people with disabilities to be told that their disability is a punishment from God and it would allow a waiter to tell a gay couple enjoying a romantic lunch that they will pray to God to heal them of their same-sex attraction. And it will be legal for trans and gender-diverse people to have their very identity undermined and attacked just on the grounds that those views are a statement of belief by some people of faith.

Don't get me wrong: people have the right to hold those views. They can believe anything they want, but they should not have the right to impose those views on others who do not share them. Everyone deserves to be loved, and to be protected by the state. They should be able to go to school, work or anywhere else free from discrimination. We are still on a long and arduous journey to equality, and the government's religious discrimination bill would leave us much further from the end of this journey than ever.

I would now like to move on to the human rights situation in India. The health of Australia's bilateral relationship with India is based on the presumption of India's constitutional guarantee of equality and justice to all its citizens. However, the democratic and human rights of India's peoples are very much under threat. According to Human Rights Watch, the BJP government has increasingly harassed, arrested and prosecuted human rights defenders, activists, journalists, students and academics who have been critical of the government or its policies. The government has also continued to impose harsh and discriminatory restrictions on Muslim majority areas in Jammu, in Kashmir.

Over the last year, 22 year old climate activist Disha Ravi was arrested in India for merely sharing a climate toolkit. Muslim journalist Rana Ayoob routinely gets sent violent threats of rape and death for critically reporting on the BJP government. These atrocities against women, young people and Muslim people must be condemned. Recently, according to an Amnesty International report, over 300 politicians, journalists and businesses were on a list of potential targets of the covert Israeli-made spyware Pegasus. These included a majority of opposition leaders in India, security forces, judiciary and cabinet ministers in glaring violation of India's constitutional guarantee of the right to privacy. Alarmingly, facial-recognition technologies, surveillance technologies and spyware were discussed and celebrated by our Prime Minister Morrison and Foreign Minister Payne at the Sydney dialogue.

In contrast, the Greens believe that the Australian government should be seriously questioning and challenging Indian leaders on their excessive use of these technologies to marginalise minority communities—women, LGBTIQA+ people and Muslim, Dalit and Adivasi communities. The Australian government should condemn the development of covertly installed spyware like Pegasus by the Israeli government, which is used to stifle voices of dissent. We should also follow the US in putting the Pegasus software on a trade blacklist.

I now want to move to the situation in Sri Lanka. Tamil community members here in Australia have told me of their deep alarm about attacks on Tamils by the Sri Lankan government. Earlier this year, the Sri Lankan authorities ordered the bulldozing of a memorial paying tribute to the victims of the 2009 Mullivaikkal massacre, which was a mass killing of Tamils. This is one of many instances of Sri Lankan authorities attempting to erase Tamils from the community. In March 2021 Australia backed the UK-led resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council, expressing deep concern at the deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka, noting the excessive militarisation and erosion of the judiciary's independence. However, just one month later, we were supplying aerial surveillance drones to Sri Lanka, to deter and disrupt asylum seekers trying to reach Australia.

It is high time for the Australian government to acknowledge Tamil people in Sri Lanka as a persecuted minority and divest from providing military support to Sri Lankan authorities. We should be standing in solidarity with, and increasing support for, Tamil refugees and asylum seekers in Australian communities.

I now want to move to Myanmar. I repeat my ask—which we have heard time and time again, from people in Myanmar, from the people here in Australia, and globally—for the Australian government to impose targeted sanctions on the leaders of the military coup. Radios produced by Australian company Barrett Communications have been sold to the Myanmar military junta. Such trade must immediately be stopped; otherwise, Australia is complicit in the anti-democracy coup by the military junta. Yet despite the loud, persistent and completely justified calls to support democracy in Myanmar and not sanction the junta, Minister Dutton recently met with representatives from the junta regime at the ASEAN-Australia defence ministers' virtual meeting.

We condemn this palpable disregard of the people's democracy in Myanmar and consider Minister Dutton's meeting with the junta as a message of recognising an illegitimate regime that took power by force and is committing atrocities against innocent civilians. Instead of legitimising the junta, the Australian government should have formal government-to-government meetings with, and recognising, the National Unity Government.

Recently, I rallied with community members in solidarity with Sudanese people fighting for democracy in Sudan. In the last few weeks so many people, including ministers, journalists and civilian protesters, have been, tragically, arrested by the government. The Australian government should be actively, loudly and persistently condemning this unjust military coup and actively working with governments across the world for a just transition of power to a legitimate democratic government, ensuring peace and justice for Sudanese people.

Finally, I speak about Ethiopia, where the Tigrayan and Oromo people are being persecuted by the military state. According to a UN and Ethiopian Human Rights Council joint report, the Ethiopian regime has displayed appalling levels of brutality, especially towards women. As the UN Human Rights Council also recognised in a recent update, Tigrayan forces have allegedly been responsible for attacks on civilians, including indiscriminate killings resulting in nearly 76,500 people displaced in Afar and an estimated 200,000 people in Amhara.

The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on human rights recently heard very powerful evidence about this issue. We heard from diaspora members, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others. There was a single, clear message: the Australian government must do more; the international community must do more. There were clear recommendations put forward by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. We support those calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, for the government of Ethiopia to remove the humanitarian blockade and for the deployment of international monitors. I call on the Australian government to amplify these calls. (Time expired)