Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a landmark report. A lot of reports come here for little remarks—'The place where good speeches go to die,' I once said of the Federation Chamber. But this is a really important report—the culmination of a year of work. It calls for an overhaul of Australia's sanctions regime, which has proven to be not adequate to protect human rights.

The proposed Magnitsky legislation will provide a real and targeted response and bring us into line with other strong human rights protecting states. It will provide additional mechanisms for the Australian government to target and sanction individuals and their beneficiaries, which means their families, where relevant, who've committed serious human rights abuses or are guilty of serious corruption perpetrated in any country across the world. The kinds of sanctions that would be available under these new laws would mean visa and travel restrictions, banning people from coming to Australia, limiting access to their assets in Australia and restricting access to Australia's financial system.

These Magnitsky-style sanctions will complement Australia's existing sanctions regime, including application of the UN Security Council sanctions and existing Australian autonomous sanctions. Importantly, they'll be applied to retrospective conduct, which was a point that we considered carefully, because grave human rights violations whether perpetrated five days ago, five years ago or 50 years ago should never be forgotten. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is proposed to have the final say as to whether a person would be subjected to sanctions. It's important to understand that decisions by the minister to sanction would be subject to the broadest range of national interest considerations. In plain English, the truth is not every bad guy or bad girl is going to make the list, because, ultimately, a decision to sanction has to be in our national interest in the broadest sense.

There'll also be scope under these proposals for the creation of a public watchlist, which would effectively be a name-and-shame list for those who are suspected of being engaged in grave human rights abuses or serious corruption but are not necessarily restricted at that time, about who enough evidence hasn't been gathered or where it may be thought that the best thing in the national interest would be to send a deterrence message without actually taking that final step to sanction.

Magnitsky laws, as they're called, at their core are about lighting a candle to shed light on the darkness and protect the most vulnerable in the community across the world. We may ask, 'Why is this report so significant at this time?' Why do I sound so excited about an obscure committee report?' It's because there's a global movement underway that's been accelerating in the last few years and, quite simply, Australia must be part of that movement. We must never underestimate the value of bringing Australia into line with other world-leading states in enacting US Magnitsky-style legislation. These laws will ensure that human rights are not merely ideals that we speak about but that we follow through on with real action.

That's the key here: tangible and effective deterrence. The global experience, which we heard much of through the inquiry, is that deterrence is a powerful force in preventing human rights abuses and corruption. It doesn't work in all cases—that's also clear—and these laws don't stop all bad behaviour, but they can help to deter and moderate abuses if the perpetrators know right up-front—and maybe a name-and-shame list would also help deter—that they risk exclusion from the global financial system, that they risk the loss of their assets, which they may have accumulated in developed Western countries and nice European capitals from ill-gotten gains, and that their beneficiaries and their families would also be affected and prevented from entering our country. Importantly their conduct will be exposed. The message from these laws that we have seen in other states that have adopted them is clear: you will not get away with gross human rights violations and serious corruption.

Those who suffer from human rights abuses are disproportionately also the victims of corruption. There is an interplay there, so these laws go further in some countries. We had a look at best practice around the world. We need to ensure that investigating, reporting and prosecuting corruption forms a significant part of any robust human rights system. It's important to stress that the development of this legislation is not about targeting particular countries. There's been a lot of media speculation. Different media outlets name this country or that country. But it's important to understand that that's what's different about these proposed sanctions: they're not about targeting a country; they're about targeting senior individuals who have individually perpetrated serious human rights abuses.

Human rights atrocities occur across the globe, and we need a more coordinated global response. There have been years of research by tireless individuals and organisations on the ground. They do incredible work, brave work. They get targeted—murdered in many of these countries—for standing up for human rights. They're on the ground daily fighting for human rights. They show us that the drivers of human rights atrocities are widespread and incredibly complex, so the responses globally must be considered and well targeted.

In 1948—a long time ago now—the global community joined together and created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since then states working collectively in various formations, not always universally, have endeavoured to find many different ways to try and counter the gross human rights violations that the world has seen and sadly continues to see. The sorts of tools available to governments or states acting collectively are things like enforcing arms embargoes, boycotts, penalising the perpetrating state through trade sanctions and other diplomatic isolating measures.

Australia of course implements all of the United Nations Security Council sanctions, but we also have our Australian autonomous sanctions that are in place right now for states such as Syria, North Korea, the former federal republic of Yugoslavia and Zimbabwe. These remedies are variable in their degree of effectiveness because of the political and human complexities involved. Given this, I'll record the fact that I'm very grateful, having participated in most of the hearings, to all of those who gave evidence to the inquiry and who shared their expertise that we were able to draw on. It's an incredibly complex area.

I'd also like to record a thanks to DFAT. The committee actually disagreed with DFAT's proposition that we don't need these laws, but they were measured, they were reasoned, they were well argued, and they were also respectful. They understood I think—they could read the tea leaves—that we were going in a different direction, and they were still professional, they were helpful, they answered our questions and they were thoughtful. I do wish that some other departments would follow their example. The way that DFAT present and support the committee is exemplary, and I think it makes our work better and makes the report more sensible when we have the benefit of their advice.

This was also a truly collaborative and bipartisan process. I'd like to thank the chair, the member for Menzies, for how he conducted the inquiry. He's a little too politically conservative for my taste, but he's an excellent chair and a good, experienced member to work with. He lets everyone have their says and listens to all views.

I also give a special thanks to the diaspora communities from so many migrant communities across Australia who've fought for these laws for such a long time and for some of whom appearing at the inquiry took actual personal risk. They were worried about the retribution against their friends and their family in their home countries, and we heard some of those stories in camera as well. That's a serious issue. It's not something we should take lightly—that Australian citizens should feel restricted from coming to their national parliament and sharing their ideas and views because of what might happen in foreign countries. So the knowledge and the voices of the diaspora communities will remain key in the future.

Importantly, the report explicitly acknowledges that protecting journalists and human rights defenders is equally important. We talked about media freedom. It was actually Amal Clooney who beamed in from where she was—Los Angeles at that point, I think—and so eloquently explained to us that, as to media freedoms, the systemic shutdown of media and journalists is a human rights abuse and explained to us how authoritarian states are using shutdowns of the internet and repressive shutdowns of the media to further human rights abuses.

Our media freedom is under threat like never before, and we've seen this kind of oppression manifest in places like Turkey, China, Hong Kong, the Russian federation, Cambodia and Egypt, and also—I say, shamefully—in our key security partner and largest foreign investor, the United States, where, shamefully, our own citizen Julian Assange is facing life imprisonment in the United States for publishing evidence of US war crimes. The risk to liberal democracies, the countries who we think we're just like, should not be underestimated. If journalists are unable to do their jobs, it will affect all of us as a global community.

Journalists, as well as human rights, democracy, labour and environmental activists remain at great risk in places like Cambodia. In fact, Cambodia provides us with an operational example of the potential application of the proposed Magnitsky legislation, because, for many years, under the gangster regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen, human rights have been under threat, and Cambodian CPP elites stand accused of enormous and systemic corruption. Hun Sen and his family and cronies make themselves rich at the expense of the Cambodian people, taking their land, attacking their labour rights, suppressing dissent and destroying any pretence of being a democracy. At the last election, Hun Sen won 125 seats out of 125 seats, and the situation under COVID-19 is getting worse.

Last month, the UN human rights expert on Cambodia issued concerns about the mass trial of 113 individuals on charges of conspiracy and incitement to create serious chaos to social security. Last month, 57—Deputy Speaker, I've got a page to finish—a good page—but I didn't have the clock, so—

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