Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 30 August 2022, of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, places on record its acknowledgement of his role in bringing the Cold War to an end and his vision for a more open and peaceful world, and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

Madam President, it is with sadness and respect that I move this condolence motion on the passing of the former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. As a child of the harsh Russia of the 1930s under Stalin, Gorbachev was a man of simple background: his father and grandfathers were farmers in the early years of Soviet agrarian collectivism. His family life was so harsh and brutal that he later reflected, 'What difference was there between this life and serfdom?' This early question reflected a lifelong courage to see clearly and to ask difficult questions. Nevertheless, he did not start his career as a disruptor.

He was a party man and a loyal Soviet citizen. He was a brilliant student, studying law at Moscow State University. While he was there he met his wife, Raisa Titarenko. They married in September 1953 and shared a close emotional and intellectual partnership which endured until her death in 1999. After graduation he returned to his native Stavropol. His promise was quickly recognised and he rose through the ranks. In 1978, Gorbachev moved back to Moscow to take the position of Central Committee secretary. Then, in 1985, he took leadership as general secretary.

His three immediate predecessors had all died in office within the proceeding four years. The Soviet ruling class was ageing, and it had failed to confront the growing reality of economic mismanagement and an arms race with the United States that the Soviet Union could no longer afford. Gorbachev, in contrast, was a relatively young man in his 50s; more importantly, he recognised that the Soviet Union not serving its citizens and needed to change.

Throughout his leadership, Mikhail Gorbachev was the defining figure in opening up Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Glasnost, perestroika—Mikhail Gorbachev became synonymous with the processes of reform, openness, transparency and reconstruction, and he drove and inspired across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. At a time that mutually assured destruction was accepted strategic doctrine, Mr Gorbachev had the courage to reject this nightmare and work towards nuclear arms reduction—earning for himself, deservedly, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

From Stalin onwards, the Soviet Union had been built on brutal, unforgiving power; on repression; on force; on lies; and on the denial of individual liberty: all sacrificed in pursuit of the ends of the state. Ultimately, it was a fragile and crumbling edifice which did not withstand the scrutiny and transparency brought by the glasnost reforms. When the first people power revolutions swept from East Germany out towards the rest of the Soviet bloc, the Soviet Union began to fall apart, crippled in part by its legacy of corrupt economic management and by the lies it had told its citizens. At that juncture, President Gorbachev made the critical decision, one utterly unpredicted by any glance through Russian history, to let power go. There are those, including the current Russian President, who see this decision as a moment of weakness, but it was an act of profound courage, an act of profound strength.

Today, as we witness the weakness and insecurity that underlies Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, we can see just how extraordinary were President Gorbachev's choices. Our challenge then and now is to strive for progress in peace. Our challenge is to reject the logic that seeks to force one nation's will over another and, instead, to resolve our differences and grapple with complex global issues like climate change, strategic competition, post-COVID economic recovery and all of the above and more, and to do so peacefully through dialogue, negotiation, compromise, hard work and respect through openness and accountability to our citizens for the world we are seeking to create in their name.

In the end, that is the lesson we can take from the life of Mexico Gorbachev. In the end, we always have a choice about how we approach the issues we face and what we do with the moments with which we are presented.

On behalf of the Australian government, I wish to place on record my respect for this extraordinary life and career.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the motion moved by the Leader of the Government in the Senate and to associate the coalition parties with the words and sentiments expressed by the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

There can be no doubt that Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the towering figures of his era and one of the most significant world leaders of the 20th century. The importance of his role in bringing to an end the Cold War, which had cast a shadow over the world for half a century, cannot be understated. As one editorial opined, 'On assuming leadership, Mikhail Gorbachev assiduously turned his attention to one herculean chore—dismantling the machinery of repression that his predecessors had so proudly and methodically erected.'

Mikhail Gorbachev was the first leader from the East who was able to work with the leaders of the West after what had been decades of distrust and military threat. The fact that Mr Gorbachev could work to overcome this history of distrust through his relationship with then US president Ronald Reagan and with other world leaders reflected his commitment to his people and their own hopes for a more positive future. It was his meeting with then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher in London in 1984 which prompted the then British leader to declare of Mr Gorbachev: 'I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.' That marked the beginning of the West's recognition of Mikhail Gorbachev as a new brand of Kremlin leader, a leader with whom the West did indeed do business, and meaningful business at that.

In what many have described as a breathtaking series of reforms, Mr Gorbachev lifted the iron curtain that had drawn a line between the East and the West, freeing a continent from totalitarian rule. He secured agreement on disarmament treaties, notably nuclear disarmament, with Cold War enemies. He freed political prisoners and allowed exiles to return home. He allowed his people for the first time to hear foreign news, when he ordered an end to the jamming of foreign radio broadcast frequencies. He liberalised the arts and swept away decades of ideological restraint. And it was Mikhail Gorbachev who introduced free elections. Just consider how foreign that concept was to the people across the USSR at the time he did that. It was these very reforms that, in the years that followed, would ultimately give states in Eastern Europe the impetus to break free of Moscow.

To the world outside of the old USSR Mr Gorbachev will be remembered as a reformer who brought greater openness to his country through policies, the names of which are intrinsically linked to the man—a new era of openness through 'glasnost' and of economic restructuring through 'perestroika'. As Mr Gorbachev himself said in 1988 of his reforms: 'The winds of the Cold War are being replaced by the winds of hope.' For indeed they were.

For his work, especially in the reunification of Germany and the pursuit of nuclear disarmament, Mikhail Gorbachev was rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. His reforms became household terms and brought an awareness across the globe to the history of the states of the USSR and to the repression of generations. People across the former Soviet states seized the opportunity to reclaim their own nationhood, reflective of their own independent histories, languages and cultures. Thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev, they were able to do so without fear of military retribution: Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians leading the way to an independence that ultimately all 15 former Soviet states would seize. The relatively peaceful dismantling of the USSR and the relatively successful development of a number of the former Soviet states stand as a powerful legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, in the end, not all of Mr Gorbachev's reforms have been enduring. Many were more popular outside his own country than they were within. Despite that, Mr Gorbachev's commitment to his people and to those across former Soviet states was never diminished, nor was his relationship with world leaders and champions of democracy who were able to work with Mr Gorbachev towards peace in a part of the world to which the concept had become alien, cast aside. The failure of a bid for Russian president in 1996 did not dampen his commitment to causes he held dear. He continued his global work, including a focus on environmental causes.

For anyone who was witness to the Gorbachev era, the strength of the relationship with his wife Raisa was abundantly clear, as was the extent of his grief at her death from leukaemia back in 1999. It has to be said, as we in the Australian Senate today pay tribute to a reformist leader, just how stark Mikhail Gorbachev's vision of the USSR contrasts to what we see today in Russia both domestically and through its unlawful invasion of Ukraine.

Mikhail Gorbachev died just days after Ukraine's 31st Independence Day and, sadly, also days after the six-month anniversary of Russia's attempted full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the days following the death of Mr Gorbachev, it was reported that he was dismayed by the new era of Russian authoritarianism, of military aggression, and the overturning of media, religious and other freedoms that he had helped to deliver for the Russian people. Having fought so hard to bring glasnost to the Russian people and those across the old USSR, it must have been particularly devastating to see Russia positioned now as being at least, if not even more, distrusted, isolated and seen as a disrupter on the world stage than it was before Mikhail Gorbachev's reign as its leader. While it is a sad reflection that these current events make Mr Gorbachev's work towards peace in Eastern Europe and across the globe seem even more elusive, we should not forget his achievements. The peaceful establishment of many nations, the reduction of many nuclear warheads, and a significant period of greater peace, stability and openness are legacies that Mikhail Gorbachev should be remembered for. While not all hopes from 30 years ago have been realised, it is these challenges which remain that makes it more important than ever that we honour the life and contribution of the reformist Mikhail Gorbachev and that we all continue to strive for the peace that he worked for.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens join in expressing our condolence for the death of former president Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr Gorbachev worked to cultivate constructive relationships with international counterparts to reduce the nuclear brinkmanship and reduce the political and military tensions at the heart of the Cold War. His approach stands in stark contrast to the warmongering we see from some current leaders, beating the drums of war with little regard for the human toll.

In particular, Mr Gorbachev's work on nuclear weapons should be commended. At the Reykjavik summit in 1986 he championed an agreement, led by the US and the Soviet Union, to dismantle their nuclear weapons and undertake sweeping reforms of nuclear arms control. If this had succeeded, the world would have had a great opportunity to create a world free of nuclear weapons. Instead, we are still facing nuclear armed states. The Reykjavik summit was a watershed moment and the first time that the US and the Soviet Union discussed international issues with diplomacy and a real desire for improvement. Reflection on Mr Gorbachev's legacy is a moment to reflect that nuclear disarmament is within reach, as long as political leaders have the courage to make the tough decisions.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to associate the National Party with this condolence motion and the comments made in the chamber today. It's difficult for anyone born post the 1980s to comprehend what the world was like pre the collapse of the Soviet Union or to convey to those who did not live through the Cold War era just how awful it was. This was a world that lived for decades on the edge of a nuclear holocaust, a world threatened by an empire propped up by twin methodologies of terror and lies, by KGB agents and armies of informants whose task it was to crush all opposition to the official party line. It was a deeply contradictory and a troubled political system. The Soviet Union was responsible for the hyperacceleration of an unhinged international arms race, and yet it could not provide even the basic provisions for its citizens on its supermarket shelves. Perhaps it was inevitable that such a system would eventually collapse, yet history shows that one man almost single-handedly precipitated that collapse, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev came to power in 1985 when he was 53 years of age. This was decades younger than most of his comrades in the politburo and a very stark contrast to his octogenarian predecessors. Gorbachev was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union. Successor to Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Chernenko, so young was Gorbachev that in the 1980s he was given global rockstar status. Gorbachev was the leader for six short years until 1991. As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Gorbachev embarked on a remarkable program of reform that was based on two extraordinary ideas: perestroika, the restructuring of the political and economic system; and glasnost, the end of censorship and the introduction of free speech.

Gorbachev was an adherent to Marxist Leninism, yet during his leadership moved the Soviet Union towards social democracy. His achievements included withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan, liberating the Soviet satellite states in East-Central Europe that included the unification of Germany and reducing nuclear arms. As one obituary writer in the New York Times stated last week:

Few leaders in the 20th century, indeed in any century, have had such a profound effect on their time. In little more than six tumultuous years, Mr. Gorbachev lifted the Iron Curtain, decisively altering the political climate of the world.

At home he promised and delivered greater openness as he set out to restructure his country's society and faltering economy. It was not his intention to liquidate the Soviet empire, but within five years of coming to power he presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

As history shows, the economic reforms Gorbachev set in place proved to be greatly flawed. Perestroika proved a catastrophe and became synonymous with chaos, corruption and dislocation that accompanied the country's turbulent transition to a market economy in the 1990s. Privatisation resulted in vast state assets being taken over by Russian oligarchs, many of whom still control them today, while a devastating earthquake in Armenia, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster combined with, ironically, a steep fall in the price of oil impoverish the country and sank Gorbachev's popularity.

Gorbachev's time of triumph was short lived. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his outstanding services as a reformer who greatly contributed to change for the better nature of the world's development. In 1991 a referendum confirming the breakup of nations that made up the Soviet empire was approved by more than three-quarters of those who voted, but a few months later a coup was launched against him and, during the stand-off, Gorbachev was forced to step down and Boris Yeltsin took power. This outcome was first alluded to by our own Paul Kelly in the Australian in 1987, commenting on the then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke's, visit to Russia during this time. He said:

In short, Mr Gorbachev has greater obstacles. First, he faces the political reactionaries, with a majority of the Politburo being appointees by his predecessors. Second, he faces the dead weight of the Soviet bureaucracy which only knows Soviet central planning.

The great irony of the passing of Gorbachev last week, aged 91, is that he is despised by many Russians today. As several commentators have noted, it would be hard today to find a Russian who remembers him positively, much less in the brave and heroic way in which he is perceived in the West. Many Russians, like Vladimir Putin, long for a lost empire and believe Gorbachev was the person who destroyed the might of the Soviet state. In fact, Putin has described the Gorbachev era as 'the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century'.

To Russian liberals, on the other hand, Gorbachev was the leader who failed to set his successor in the right direction. When he visited Australia in 2006, Gorbachev said in an interview: 'When I was in office, I never regarded Australia as just a satellite of the US. Of course, the policies of the [Australian] government could give that impression, but we regarded Australia as an important country, as a wealthy country, as a country with which we wanted to have a better relationship, and that is still my opinion.'

While the Soviet empire is no more, some of the more abominable aspects of that regime have re-emerged in recent years. Indeed, while entire empires can fall, dangerous and destructive ideologies have a habit of re-emerging. The invasion of Ukraine is in part an attempt to reverse the loss of status felt in post-Cold War Russia by the disintegration of the Soviet Union that occurred under Gorbachev. In the West, including in Australia, we're experiencing neo-Marxist novelties re-emerging in the form of challenges to personal and national freedoms, challenges to the free expression of ideas and opinions and threats to true academic freedom, freedom of religion and the right to practise your faith and bring your children up in that faith.

We on this side of parliament and, I hope, across parliament, especially in the Nationals, adhere to certain inviolable values of freedom, respect, fairness, equality of opportunity and private property rights. Mikhail Gorbachev, known as the great facilitator, was the last of the great leaders of the last century. As such, we honour his contribution to a more peaceful, secure world, as well as to individual freedom.

Question agreed to, honourable senators joining in a moment of silence.