Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On 30 November 2005, an impressive cross-section of Australians gathered on the lawns in front of Parliament House to call for leniency for convicted drug smuggler Van Nguyen, not because any of us there sympathised with his crime but because we were and remain genuinely opposed to the death sentence. It was particularly moving to hear the speech of Brian Deegan, whose son died in the Sari Club blast. He repeated his earlier eloquent opposition to the death penalty, including for Amrozi, who has been convicted for his involvement in that terrible massacre. It is by that standard that those who claim to be opposed to the death penalty should be judged.

Opposition to capital punishment is like advocacy for other civil liberties: the genuine test of commitment is what we advocate for the worst of us—what we say about the hard cases, not the easy ones. I found a very interesting quote from former United States Supreme Court judge Felix Frankfurter, who said:

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.

That is essentially right. The progress is made when we are prepared to stand up for civil liberties in unpopular circumstances. It was not hard in Australia to stand up against capital punishment for Van Nguyen. I am not critical of the Australian government for its defence of him. I, like many of the ministers, sought to intercede on his behalf with friends of mine in the government and parliament of Singapore and made no progress because they were committed and determined. But it is hard to do it for Amrozi, and that is what is important.

Let me quote from the member for Griffith’s recent excellent article in the Monthly magazine. He posed his argument on Christian principles, which I do not hold—I am not a religious person. But he said:

We must conclude that capital punishment is unacceptable in all circumstances and in all jurisdictions.

That is what I have always thought Australia’s position was. That is what I have always thought that all governments in Australia have advocated. But that has been compromised by recent equivocation by the Australian government on this matter.

I will quote Michelle Grattan, who talked about this in an edition of the Age in September of this year. To some extent, this article refers to the Michael Fullilove essay to which the member for Gellibrand so correctly referred earlier, because it is an excellent essay. Michelle Grattan said:

It is very hard for the Australian Government to ask for clemency except on straight special pleading grounds. Australia would be better armed in such situations if internationally it argued the general anti-capital punishment case more robustly.

In a recent Lowy Institute paper, Capital Punishment and Australian Foreign Policy, Michael Fullilove observes that while Australia “engages in modest advocacy” against the death penalty, most of Canberra’s work is on behalf of individual Australians.

Australia has a double problem: “Australian diplomacy is making little progress toward universal abolition, a bipartisan national policy; and our bilateral relationships are being damaged because of our perceived hypocrisy on the issue.”

The PM’s selectivity has made Australia appear hypocritical. Howard, while declaring himself an opponent of capital punishment, has made it clear he’s happy enough for the death penalty to be applied to the Bali bombers. He declared in early 2003 that there “won’t be any protest from Australia” against the death sentence.

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Fullilove urges Australian leaders to bring consistency to their rhetoric, and also suggests Australia should initiate a regional coalition against capital punishment.

It is to that point about the regional coalition that I now turn, because if you want to build a national campaign you need to advocate on the basis of a strong and consistent principle. We will be more effective in our advocacy on behalf of Australians if we are consistent. We will have more chance of succeeding diplomatically if we are consistent. And if those reasons are not powerful enough, it just happens to be the right thing to do.

The prospect of a successful campaign is not without encouraging signs at the moment. Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or in practice—86 countries for all crimes; 11 for all but exceptional crimes, such as those committed during wartime; and 25 which can be considered abolitionist in practice, for, while they retain the death penalty, it has not been enforced for 10 or more years. That makes a total of 122 countries in law or practice, and since 1990 over 40 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

We cannot expect that it will all happen immediately, that it will all happen overnight. It will take a lot of very hard work. But the signs are encouraging in another matter to which the Attorney referred, which is the initiative by the Philippines to abolish the death penalty. I greatly welcome that. The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 1987—they were the first country to do so—but it was reintroduced until 2000, when former President Estrada announced a moratorium. President Arroyo has continued that practice through her presidency. She advocated that the Philippines congress should pass a law abolishing the death penalty, which it recently did, and I greatly welcome that.

It is very important that we look at building a campaign, particularly in our region—not because the death penalty is more important in our region than in other countries like the United States but because we have the capacity to more effectively campaign in this region. It is where our diplomatic resources are, it is where our influence is the greatest and it is of course where Australians are most prone to getting into trouble as a result of the death penalty in some of our neighbouring countries.

We must start to seek to encourage more countries in our region to sign up to the second optional protocol. It is a top priority foreign policy initiative that any Australian government should adopt. But we have no chance of succeeding if we advocate clemency for Australians but different standards for everybody else, if we advocate an abolition of the death penalty every time it is easy and equivocate every time it is hard. That is the direction in which we have been going, and we must stop.

We cannot expect other countries to take us seriously if we say, ‘You shouldn’t hang Australians but it’s all right to hang everybody else.’ That is not a tenable position. Clearly, diplomatically, it cannot succeed. Can you imagine going in to argue in the halls of the countries in which we have to do this advocacy, they having seen our Prime Minister equivocate about the question of the death penalty being applied to Indonesians, and seeking to convince the Indonesians that we are consistent and proud of our policy of being opposed to the death penalty?

It would be a difficult domestic political position to argue, I know, but we are elected to this parliament with responsibilities to lead, not just to follow. Consistently, for at least four decades, political leaders in Australia of all political parties have led on the issue of capital punishment. They have had the capacity and the courage to say, ‘We know there are many Australians who do not agree with us but we will not tolerate the death penalty in Australia and we do not support it anywhere else.’ That is a standard to which we need to return.

There is in this debate a general theme of civil liberties. I do not want to refer to it too much; I want to concentrate mainly on the death penalty issue, and it was covered very adequately by the member for Gellibrand. But I do want to say something briefly about two matters to do with David Hicks. I have spoken about David Hicks in this parliament before. He has been incarcerated for five years, and it appals me that Australia applies lower standards in the defence and advocacy of the rights of our citizens than any other Western country with regard to this matter. The standards that are being applied to David Hicks cannot apply to UK citizens, because the British government will not allow it.

What is more appalling is that the American government will not apply this standard to their citizens. When US citizens were charged with offences in Afghanistan, they were tried in open court—and they should have been. As my recollection goes, they were found guilty and sentenced, but they were tried properly. Why can that same standard not be applied to Australians and why can the Australian government not get the courage to argue for it? This is not a matter for sharp partisan political tricks, clever weasel words or dog whistles in the hope of rustling up a few votes in Australia. This is a matter, as I said, on which those of us with the privilege of being elected to this place are called upon to lead.

Over three or four decades all our political leaders, irrespective of political persuasion, have shown that lead. It is a cause of regret to me that that leadership appears to be missing in the Australian government today. I hope and trust the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General can find it in their hearts to rise above the temptations of the short-term partisan advantage and return Australia to a principled leadership on this issue. (Time expired)

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