Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Mitchell was talking about the Non-aligned Movement. We have sent officials to the Non-aligned Movement as guests for some time, so there is nothing new in that. Senior officials have attended the last three Non-aligned Movement ministerial meetings: Special Envoy Joanna Hewitt at the meeting in Egypt in May 2012; the special envoy and the former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer in Indonesia in May 2011 and Belgrade in September 2011; and former foreign minister Stephen Smith at the last Non-aligned Movement summit in Egypt in 2009. The Non-aligned Movement has 120 members and is the largest regular gathering of countries outside the UN General Assembly. So it is important not to reduce the Non-aligned Movement down to the question of Iran. This is a broad movement, a broad body, and it is important for Australia to attend. It is in our national interest and in the interests of diplomacy.

Nobody supports Iran's current nuclear ambitions. Nobody supports its current position on foreign policy—its support of terrorists around the world, particularly in the Middle East—and nobody supports the reign of terror that the current government of Iran imposes on its own people. We should be cognisant of not just the use of sanctions to prevent Iran's ambition to obtain a nuclear weapon but also the use of sanctions to improve Iran's human rights record. Of course, the two are inextricably linked. I think we will not remove the threat of Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions unless there is significant domestic reform in Iran—in particular, a movement to respect human rights and comply with international obligations, and starting a pathway to democracy.

Iran has had a troubled history. It suffered under the Shah of Iran and suffered from foreign intervention during that period, and that led to the Islamic revolution. It is not often you see the people of a country swap one tyranny for another, but it does happen. We would hope that it never happen, but in this case they simply swapped the Shah of Iran and his secret police for a theocracy. Although it allows voting, and votes with some regularity, it is of course only for candidates that the theocracy approves of. There is a secret police and there is a revolutionary guard. People are regularly hauled off to jail, their human rights are violated, their personal freedoms are violated and crimes are committed upon them both by the state and its agents.

In my mind, the announcement of Iran's nuclear ambitions are linked completely to its progress on the domestic front, and we should do everything—as the previous speaker said—to encourage the green revolution which began the movement to democracy in the Middle East but which sadly remains unfinished. I think the sooner that process can begin and continue the better.

Debate adjourned.

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