Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last few weeks, we have seen horrendous and horrific scenes in Bangladesh where former prime minister Hasina has been allowing extraordinary violence to be perpetrated against peaceful demonstrators, mainly younger people and students, who have been protesting against unfair employment practices in the civil service in Bangladesh. This has caused great concern across the Bangladeshi diaspora in our country, and many of us across the aisle and across this Senate have taken representations and engaged very thoughtfully with that Bangladesh diaspora. The depth of the feeling has been very moving. There are family members who have been caught up in the violence. There are people who have been detained. So the removal of Prime Minister Hasina appears to be a positive step for Bangladesh. We in the coalition and, I'm sure, all members of this Senate have been wanting to see a much better deal and a stronger commitment to transparency and democracy in Bangladesh, a country with which we have very serious people-to-people links and deep cultural ties and a country that we care about very deeply.

I wanted to say to all the members of the diaspora here in Australia that we're very sorry for all the anguish you've had to experience, and we will do our best to ensure that our parliament can work to put appropriate pressure on Bangladesh to maintain a commitment to human rights and transparency for all Bangladeshis.