Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010. This bill was debated in June, prior to the federal election; however, due to the proroguing of the parliament, it has had to be reintroduced. The coalition continues to support this bill, with some slight reservations that I will raise later in my speech. I do not want to repeat verbatim my speech on this bill from June, but I will nevertheless need to cover much of the same ground.

As I noted in the earlier debate, this bill will enable Australia to implement autonomous sanctions without having to rely on legislation that is in fact intended for other purposes. The bill is designed to strengthen Australia’s autonomous sanctions regime by allowing greater flexibility in the range of measures Australia can implement beyond those achievable under existing instruments, thus ensuring Australia’s autonomous sanctions can match the scope and extent of measures implemented by like-minded states. There is an alternative, United Nations Security Council sanctions regime currently covering 11 nations in addition to terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Autonomous sanctions are in addition to the UN Security Council sanctions regime.

This is a stand-alone piece of legislation that gives governments the ability to impose a sanctions regime without resorting to the sometimes messy amendment of other legislation that regulates activities, such as the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations, the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations or other legislation related to the provision of services or software.

The bill also provides a standard penalties regime for those who contravene the provisions of the legislation. This is consistent with the rules applied to the enforcement of UN Security Council sanctions specified under the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945.

Sanctions are a necessary part of the armoury in international relations. They are a useful tool if a nation-state wants to avoid more drastic measures such as resorting to military intervention. They have existed ever since humanity was divided into various groupings and tribes.

I note that sanctions are considered by the Australian people to be a productive tool in foreign policy terms. The Lowy Institute for International Policy recently conducted a poll called Australia and the world: public opinion and foreign policy. One question in this poll related to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, and it is interesting to note that after ‘diplomatic negotiations’, with 85 per cent support, 69 per cent of those surveyed supported ‘economic sanctions’ as a favoured response to Iran’s behaviour.

Australia is not a huge user of the tool, and I think that over time there has been a judicious use of it to make whatever diplomatic point has arisen over time. The coalition believes that autonomous sanctions can, in appropriate circumstances, play an important role in sending clear messages to regimes or countries that their behaviour is unacceptable to the norms of our regions. That is why the coalition supports this bill. It streamlines and improves the ability of the government to impose sanctions against regimes whose behaviour is out of step with accepted international behaviour.

Sanctions are not a solution to every international situation, nor are they generally able to provide rapid changes in aberrant or abhorrent behaviour. They are one of the ways in which the international community can show solidarity with countries where some have adopted behaviour that threatens to undermine stability or threatens their neighbours and beyond. Indeed, only this last week, the issue of a sanctions regime was raised in the national media.

In July this year the Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor of Monash University, South Africa, Professor Dina Burger, visited Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe in his office in Harare and reportedly extended to him an invitation to give a guest lecture at one of the university’s campuses. Professor Burger is reported to have praised Mr Mugabe’s humility. Zimbabwe has been subject to Australian autonomous sanctions since September 2002, targeting the Mugabe regime and its supporters. The sanctions are extensive. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, there are sanctions implemented by the Reserve Bank of Australia against targeted financial sanctions involving members or supporters of the Mugabe regime, including senior management officials of state-owned companies. In addition, there are restrictions on visas for travel to Australia by members or supporters of the Mugabe regime, including senior management officials of state-owned companies. There is also screening of all student visa applications from Zimbabwe to identify whether any applicants are the adult children of Zimbabwean individuals subject to Australian travel and financial sanctions. Applications so identified are referred to the Minister for Foreign Affairs for consideration as to whether their presence in Australia would be in Australia’s foreign policy interests. There are also an arms embargo, a prohibition of defence links, the downgrading of government-to-government contacts at multilateral forums and the downgrading of cultural links. Monash University has subsequently disowned Professor Burger’s actions, and rightly so.

More broadly, in the case of autonomous sanctions imposed by our country, in addition to Zimbabwe, they are in place against Burma, North Korea, Iraq, the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Fiji, and they range from financial sanctions to travel restrictions, the suspension of government-to-government links and the like. Autonomous sanctions against Burma have been in place since October 2007 and against members of the Burmese regime, their associates and their supporters. In response to the regime’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists in 2007, the former coalition government introduced bans on financial dealings in Australia on about 400 Burmese officials and associates. At the time, Foreign Minister Downer described them as ‘the strongest financial measures available under existing Australian legislation against countries or individuals that are not subject to United Nations Security Council sanctions’.

North Korea has been subject to Australian autonomous sanctions since 2006. Autonomous sanctions from Australia were employed against Iran from October 2008 and against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from June 1992, targeting those indicted for or suspected of war crimes during the early 1990s. Autonomous sanctions have been in place against Fiji since December 2006. They are:

… against those responsible for the December 2006 Fiji military coup and senior appointees of Fiji’s Interim Government.

Iran has been accused of pursuing nuclear weapons—an accusation denied by the regime—but its ongoing refusal to fully cooperate with the international nuclear inspectors has raised international concerns. This is a critical issue for the whole world, as Israel has threatened military action against nuclear facilities in Iran, an action that would almost certainly trigger retaliation from Iran and its proxies with a potentially devastating impact on the globe. There is an obvious need for sanctions against Iran to work effectively and for Iran to open up its nuclear program to inspectors who can certify that its program is for peaceful power generation purposes. The consequences of the alternative are too terrible to contemplate.

North Korea, in contrast, has detonated nuclear devices in breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions and remains a source of deep tension in the region. Punitive sanctions have impacted on the regime and the long-suffering people of North Korea but have had limited impact on the behaviour of the regime. Its recent provocative action in allegedly sinking a South Korean navy ship has raised tensions close to breaking point.

We must continue to trust that targeted sanctions can work to bring about a change in the behaviour of rogue regimes around the world. Of course, such sanctions can create a dilemma. They can inflict damage on the target country’s population to the point where the moral or humanitarian implications of the sanctions can raise concerns. A case in point is North Korea. While broad based sanctions are called for, a collapse of North Korea would cause a massive flood of refugees into the region. The desired result, the end to North Korea’s nuclear program and its provocative behaviour in pursuit of it, must be put in this context.

There is a view that sanctions are more likely to work if there is an organised domestic political opposition force which can build political pressure on the government. However, in the absence of such opposition, sanctions can sometimes bolster domestic public support for a regime that blames an external enemy for all the woes of the nation. Nonetheless, strong sanctions tend to create a political atmosphere of anxiety and paranoia, which greatly increases the possibility of armed conflict.

International economic pressure could also create incentives for authoritarian regimes to be even more repressive towards opposition forces in order to hold on to power. Burma is a prime example. The more pressure from the international community, the more determined the regime seems to be in its efforts to destroy the chances of the main opposition, which had been the National League for Democracy as it was, and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi from taking any role in the country. As I have informed this House on a number of occasions, I met with Aung San Suu Kyi in 1995. I think that any person who has spent any time in her presence could not fail to be overwhelmed by her inspiring and moral example of leadership. The Burmese regime, having been humiliated in the 1989 election when Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won 89 per cent of the parliamentary seats, appears ever more determined not to concede to foreign pressure in the event that it weakened its claim, albeit spurious, to legitimacy and popular support.

However, despite these risks and consequences and the dilemmas they can raise, on balance sanctions have proved to be an effective way of encouraging governments to adopt behaviour that is in line with the values of the international community. Historically it is fair to say that sanctions have played an important role in effecting the behaviour of many governments or regimes around the world. While far from perfect, I would argue they have helped avert military conflict in many instances. Sanctions can have a devastating impact on regimes in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and they did play an important role in preventing Saddam Hussein obtaining nuclear weapons.

While the coalition supports this bill in principle, we propose to refer it to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee because of our concerns about the domestic privacy implications of the bill. These concerns arise from this passage in the original second reading speech of the then Minister for Foreign Affairs:

… the bill will facilitate access to information for purposes associated with the administration of sanction laws by removing impediments for the sharing of such information within the Commonwealth, and allowing specially designated Commonwealth entities, responsible for the administration and enforcement of sanction laws, to require, by written notice, the production of documents and written information—including under oath—from persons outside of government in order to determine whether a sanction law is being complied with.

The coalition believes that the government should elaborate on this aspect of the bill to satisfy the privacy concerns arising from this passage in the second reading speech. Nonetheless, with that slight reservation, I note that the Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010 will provide added flexibility to Australia to implement autonomous sanctions that reflect our belief that a type of behaviour is unacceptable and must be changed to avert more serious action. Rather than having to rely on existing legislation to implement autonomous sanctions, Australia will have available to it a more flexible range of foreign policy options to demand a change of behaviour. Subject to the point about referring the passage on privacy considerations to the relevant Senate committee, I commend this bill to the House.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010 provides a framework for the implementation in Australia of autonomous sanctions. Autonomous sanctions are punitive measures not involving the use of armed force which a government imposes as a matter of foreign policy, as opposed to an international obligation under a United Nations Security Council decision in situations of international concern. Such situations include the grave repression of the human rights or democratic freedoms of a population by a government or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery, or internal or international armed conflict. The purpose of the bill we are debating is to strengthen Australia’s autonomous sanctions regime by allowing greater flexibility in the range of measures it can implement, thus ensuring Australia’s autonomous sanctions match the scope and extent of measures implemented by like-minded countries.

The bill before the House will assist the administration of, and compliance with, sanctions measures by removing distinctions between the scope and extent of autonomous sanctions and United Nations sanction laws. The bill is modelled on the legislation with which Australia implements United Nations Security Council sanctions, the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945, and is intended to be a framework under which regulations are made. Each set of regulations would contain the specific measures to be imposed in response to a particular situation of international concerns.

Autonomous sanctions, either supplementary to or independent of United Nations Security Council sanctions, are likely to play an increasing part in responses of like-minded countries to situations of international concern. Autonomous sanctions measures are intended to achieve three objectives: to limit the adverse consequences of a situation of international concern—for example, by denying access to military or paramilitary goods—to seek to influence those responsible for giving rise to a situation of concern to modify their behaviour to remove the concern; and to penalise those responsible—for example, by denying access to international travel or to the international financial system. They are highly targeted measures, applied only to the specific governments, individuals or entities, in the form of targeted financial sanctions and travel bans, or to the specific goods and services, such as military goods or goods with a weapons of mass destruction dual use, that are responsible for, or have a nexus to, the situation of international concern. They are applied so as to minimise, to the extent possible, the impact on the general populations of the affected countries. I think it is important that in the national parliament we discuss issues of human rights, and this bill provides that opportunity.

In the area of human rights I would like to focus on two areas of concern: firstly, China, particularly its treatment of Tibet, and, secondly, Iran. I might say something about Burma if time permits. In November 2009 the Fifth World Parliamentarians Convention on Tibet took place in Rome. It was attended by representatives of 30 parliaments around the world. The Australian All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet, of which I am a member—and Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, I know you are also a member—was represented at the convention, which at the end adopted the Rome Declaration. This declaration defines the right of the Tibetan people to their own identity, culture and way of life; reaffirms a strong commitment to the people of Tibet and to the non-violent path they have chosen under the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama; seeks a resolution for Tibet that guarantees genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people within the framework of the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China; proclaims that the message is not anti Chinese but a statement of support for justice and truth with a sincere conviction that the Tibetan and Chinese peoples can find a way to coexist with mutual respect; and finds that, since 2005, the situation in Tibet has deteriorated due to the government of the Peoples Republic of China’s imposition of harsh measures on Tibetans and its harder line taken toward the Dalai Lama and his pursuit of autonomy.

The convention resolved to express support for substantive negotiations between the Chinese government and the representatives of the Dalai Lama towards a meaningful resolution of the Tibet issues with the memorandum on genuine autonomy as a realistic and constructive basis for such negotiations. It resolved to call on governments to urge the Peoples Republic of China to fully respect the Tibetan people’s fundamental human rights and freedoms and to commit to engage relevant governments and institutions to ensure that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is welcomed appropriately when meeting with various government leaders and officials. I fully support the Rome Declaration.

The result of the climate change talks in Copenhagen in December also had adverse implications for Tibet and the welfare of its people. The climate change issue is very significant for Tibet. Tibet contains the largest icefields outside of the Arctic and Antarctic and is sometimes referred to as earth’s ‘third pole’. Melting glaciers are threatening Tibetan villages and damaging a resource depended on by at least a billion people in Asia. The parliamentarians believe that, just as China is essential to successful implementation of global climate change solutions, Tibet is indispensable to China’s ability to implement them successfully. China has a lot of power in the modern world, but with power comes responsibility, and I believe China must exercise its new-found power responsibly and act as a good international citizen.

Amnesty International Report 2010: The State of the World’s Human Rights, has criticised China as responding to dissent and protest with unfair trials and death sentences. Although the statistics are clothed in secrecy, China is still the world’s leading executioner. Amnesty International has also previously documented a pattern of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees in Tibet by China’s security forces, especially those accused by the Chinese authorities of separatist activities. Moreover, China has long banned independent human rights monitors from Tibet. Amnesty International has in the past called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to urge the Chinese authorities to address Tibetans’ long-term grievances, including restrictions on religious practice; persecution for exercising their freedoms of expression, association and assembly; government policies that have weakened their culture and ethnic identity; and their perceived exclusion from the benefits of economic development. I think they are very important concerns.

Human rights abuses in Iran are also a source of great concern. After the presidential election last year in July, Amnesty International reported on the comments at the time by Irene Khan, Amnesty International Secretary General, and the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi. The report said:

“Three days ago, thousands of people in over 100 cities across the world joined in a Global Day of Action in protest at the numerous arrests, beatings and killings that have accompanied the Iranian authorities’ attempt to force through the declared election result, which is so widely disputed,” said Irene Khan.

               …            …            …

Irene Khan and Shirin Ebadi cautioned that international attention and efforts must not fade, however intransigent the authorities in Tehran appear.

“People in Iran need international support now more than ever as the political divisions in Tehran play themselves out,” said Shirin Ebadi. “International attention and pressure must be sustained and intensified if it is to have impact on those calling the shots in Tehran.”

“In particular, the UN needs to play a more determined and decisive role,” said Irene Khan. “Through its human rights and other mechanisms, the UN must investigate the violations taking place in Iran and compile evidence that can be used, one day, to bring those responsible to account.”

Widespread arbitrary arrest of university students, women, former political prisoners and family members of Iranian dissidents living in Camp Ashraf, situated in Iraq, continues every day. The reports of human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and United Nations bodies about brutal repression by the regime and systematic use of violent torture against women and other political prisoners are shocking and abhorrent and must be strongly condemned by the international community. These things show the regime’s fear of its own people. We must work through the United Nations Security Council to encourage the necessary steps that will curtail the Iranian regime. I believe we should also support the Iranian opposition in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. They have been the pioneers of the struggle for human rights, democracy and equality for the past three decades in Iran, and that deadly and violent attack of the Iraqi armed forces against defenceless residents at this camp at the behest of the Iranian regime in late July 2009 is a major concern to the Iranian community here in Australia.

Just as worryingly, the Iranian regime has also been engaged in nuclear and ballistic missile activity. It has locked out the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose job it is to make sure countries producing nuclear power to generate electricity are not also trying to produce nuclear weapons. In November last year, the IAEA board of governors adopted a resolution which noted that Iran continued to defy relevant IAEA and UN Security Council resolutions; had constructed an enrichment facility ‘in breach of its obligation to suspend all enrichment related activities’ and had failed to notify the IAEA of the facility until September 2009; and had not implemented the additional protocol or cooperated with the IAEA in connection with remaining issues of concern. The board of governors also noted that the Director General continued to be unable to verify that Iran’s program is for exclusively peaceful purposes and called on Iran to fully comply with its obligations and engage with the agency.

In February this year, Iran announced that it had resumed uranium enrichment. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is seeking United Nations sanctions on Iran to force it to rein in its nuclear program. I support economic sanctions. They were successful in South Africa and helpful in Libya. I note reports that China, which is a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, has resisted pressure from the US and other members to back tougher penalties against Iran, apparently because Iran is China’s third largest source of crude oil. This is not good enough and I believe, as I have mentioned earlier, that China needs to be a responsible international citizen in its handling of nuclear nonproliferation, climate change and human rights issues. The international community should support moves within Iran towards democracy, human rights and women’s rights. It should not turn a blind eye to religious fundamentalism, regular abuses of human rights and barbaric practices such as public executions and moves to obtain nuclear weapons.

In February, Gareth Evans expressed support for financial sanctions against Iran. Such sanctions inhibit the flow of capital and hamper both trade financing and investment. Gareth Evans also called for targeted sanctions against key individuals, and I support such action. The issue of human rights violations around the world is a growing concern, and it is important that emerging powers respect human rights rather than seeking only an economic dividend or opportunistic political influence from their international relations.

In the time remaining to me, I want to make a few remarks about the situation in Burma as well, and I note that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has also done so. Burma is a country with a very poor track record in relation to human rights and human rights abuses. It has been said that Burma’s oil and gas industry is linked to human rights abuses. This has been said by the ILO—the International Labour Organisation—the UN special rapporteur on human rights abuses in Burma and the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma. There are Australian companies—certainly Australia’s Twinza Oil—currently doing exploration for oil and gas in Burma, and concern has been expressed to me that, should Twinza Oil’s project move forward, it is likely that this would be accompanied by a pipeline which will cause more Burmese soldiers to be deployed along the pipeline, resulting in increased human rights violations against villagers. It is also estimated that the project would earn something like US$2½ billion over its lifetime, money which would help fund Burma’s military dictatorship, one of the worst military regimes and violators of human rights in the world. At present there is nothing to stop Australian companies like Twinza Oil investing in Burma despite the severe negative impacts and direct links to human rights violations that these projects have. Targeted sanctions would stop companies like Twinza Oil profiting from the oppression of others. I believe that we need to do everything that we can to prevent human rights violations in Burma and to encourage that regime to move down a democratic and pluralist path. I believe that this is a good piece of legislation; it has my support and I commend the bill to the House.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few brief comments on the Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010. The purpose of the bill is to strengthen Australia’s autonomous sanctions regime by allowing greater flexibility in the range of measures that Australia can seek to implement, therefore allowing the sanctions which we can autonomously—that is, by ourselves—put in place to match the scope and range of sanctions by other like-minded countries.

Suffice it to say—it is fair—that we live in a very uncertain world. If anyone was ever unsure about that, they should cast their mind back to 1986, the International Year of Peace, when no fewer than 46 wars ravaged the globe. Today war continues to be a scourge on our world with even more conflict globally. I think everyone would concede that when countries descend into chaos and war, horror always follows. To send young men and women into harm’s way is not something that an executive would seek to do lightly. We all acknowledge that at times the profession of arms is indeed necessary, but it behoves the executive and, indeed, all parliamentarians to keep themselves accountable and to ensure that we do everything possible before engaging in that ultimate battle of wills that is armed combat. Indeed, armed combat should be absolutely the last resort.

We should be looking at any number of options for us to take forward before resorting to force. Unfortunately, the reality is that, whilst we do everything to secure our borders, our national interests and our way of life, force at times is necessary. But this bill is all about considering what we do before the application of force. One of the key measures that needs to be considered before force is used has to be the use of sanctions, of economic might, of political muscle and of the strength of our argument and our ideas backed up by the strength of our commerce to achieve our political end state before we engage in that ultimate battle of wills. This is the role of sanctions.

As we know, there are United Nations imposed sanctions whereby the UN seeks and passes a resolution for sanctions against a particular nation. Of course, there are autonomous sanctions—sanctions imposed by individual countries outside of the multinational arena. In the case of Australia, we currently have a range of sanctions in place against countries such as Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Iran and, more locally, Fiji. These sanctions range from financial sanctions to travel restrictions, suspension of government-to-government links, not allowing our ambassadors to reside in certain countries and so on.

The purpose of this range of sanctions is to send a very clear message—that we as a nation will seek to stand up to tyranny, that we will not allow other countries to sink into anarchy, that we will protect the rights of democracy and that we will set an example of a First World nation as it seeks to do what it can to bring about a world freer from the threats of violence, disease and hunger. Sanctions are about saying, ‘We will play a responsible part in the rule of nations and the rule of law globally.’ This is why various governments have moved to put sanctions in place against such dictatorial and brutal regimes as we find with the military junta in Burma, North Korea, Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Iran. We also seek to place sanctions against nations where constitutional democracy has unfortunately failed, like in Fiji.

The challenge is that currently sanctions are imposed by relying on legislation that is, frankly, intended for other purposes. I thought the Minister for Foreign Affairs in his original second reading speech gave a very good example of where Australia currently uses a hodgepodge of legislation to achieve that. He noted that Australian financial sanctions are imposed autonomously by Australia relying on the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations Act 1959. These regulations were originally promulgated for the protection of our nation’s currency and the regulation of our foreign currency reserves. However, we have used that bill to provide the basis for financial sanctions against some of the nations of the world. If that is not creative, I am not too sure what is.

The purpose of the bill today is to move beyond the creative and to put in place a bill that allows a range of autonomous sanctions to be applied in their own right. It is to provide flexibility and responsiveness in imposing sanctions from our nation on a range of countries, without having to rely on a raft of other legislation that frankly does not fit the purpose. Providing this flexibility and giving the executive the vehicle and the powers it needs to appropriately and legally impose sanctions for the betterment of parts of the world is sensible, right and supported.

Sanctions where appropriate can actually achieve end states that other areas of governance, actions or talk cannot. There are numerous examples of where sanctions have been the appropriate course applied to move a foreign government towards a better way of governance. The coalition believes autonomous sanctions can play a very significant part in sending clear messages. If we look at the access regimes of Iran, North Korea and Burma, regimes where democracy is downtrodden, where human rights are violated, where independent political parties seeking to represent people are not allowed and where trade unions are not permitted, for these countries it is absolutely appropriate for a nation like Australia to seek to use sanctions to send a very clear message—that freedom is not just for the few; freedom is for all.

People in all countries must be free to assemble under trade unions. I know you may be shocked to hear that from me, as a great Liberal, but I actually take some pride in fighting for the rights of people to assemble under a trade union. People have that right and they should have the right to seek to come together. That is a choice and freedom they should have. They should not be pushed into a trade union. There should not be laws that force them into a trade union. There should not be rules that say, ‘You must collectively bargain with a trade union and you have no choice.’ But freedom to gather, collect and be represented is a freedom worth fighting for.

People should have the right to join a political party. They should have the right to seek office. They should have the right to bring up their families free from restrictions from the state. They should have the right to seek office and change in their nation. People should have the right of free speech, cognisant of the needs of others. People should have the right to travel and rights of expression and religion. These are fundamental and basic freedoms that any First World nation considers just and right to stand up for. People should be able to enjoy freedom in all its realms and all its wonders, as a First World nation does.

We as a nation are not ignorant of the plight of others, nor do we ignore them and turn the other cheek. We will seek to use every measure at our disposal that is sensible, appropriate and warranted to achieve the end of sending a clear, appropriate and compassionate message—that, whilst we care for the people of other nations, at times we do not care for their unelected, dictatorial representatives. Frankly, I would rather see the use of sanctions to achieve a political end state than seek to continue to rely on force.

I am not blind to the fact that force is sometimes required, that it can be all too necessary. I am cognisant that as we speak there are some 300,000 Australian combat men and women deployed overseas on a range of operations from the Sinai to Egypt, the Sudan, the Solomons, East Timor, the wider Middle East, the HMAS Melbourne in the Gulf and Afghanistan in combat seeking to assist, help and support people who are suffering under dictatorial, oppressive and brutal regimes and insurgencies.

There is indeed a time for war. I am not blind to that fact. I understand the price of peace is eternal vigilance. There is no way for us to move away from that necessity when it is required. But putting together a platform that allows the first step to be a range of sanctions that does not require us to rest on a range of disparate legislation is clearly the first step.

I note that a range of privacy concerns on this bill have been raised by the coalition. I believe the bill is being referred to a Senate inquiry to further examine some of these issues should they arise, noting that the bill facilitates access to information for purposes to allow the bill to be enacted. Whilst on the surface this may well seem appropriate, the due course of parliamentary oversight does require the bill to be analysed in greater detail, and I certainly applaud the Senate for taking that move.

The Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010 in its intent will seek to provide an appropriate framework for the executive to undertake the role of seeking to preserve freedom and protect the rights of individuals by first seeking sanctions. It enjoys our support but clearly we reserve our right to move amendments should the Senate committee report otherwise.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on the Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010 and I commend the Australian government for bringing this important piece of legislation forward. Australia is a founding member of the United Nations and all Australian governments have been supporters of the UN when it has sought to impose sanctions on regimes which commit aggression against neighbours, threaten the peace of the world or violate human rights.

The sad fact is that, because of the veto power enjoyed by permanent members of the Security Council, the UN is frequently unable to act as we know it should against certain regimes. In recent times both China and Russia have used their veto power to protect their friends and clients from scrutiny and to shield them from sanctions. Some of the world’s worst regimes, such as North Korea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cuba, Burma and Iran, are constantly in violation of the principles of the UN charter, but automatic majorities at the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council enable them to protect themselves. Some threaten their neighbours with aggression and develop weapons of mass destruction. Some support terrorist organisations in other countries and export arms to rogue regimes. All of them oppress their own people. Unfortunately, because of the politics of the Security Council, the UN is usually unable to apply effective sanctions against these regimes. In these circumstances, it is important that democratic countries have the means to apply their own sanctions.

This bill strengthens the legal base of Australia’s autonomous sanctions system. The objects of applying targeted, autonomous sanctions on the regime in Tehran, for instance, are to, firstly, limit the harmful consequences of the actions of a government against which the sanctions are being applied; secondly, influence the government in question to modify its behaviour; and, thirdly, penalise those individuals responsible for threatening the peace of the world or violating human rights, while not penalising most Persians, the history and culture of whom Australians only have respect for.

Most importantly, this bill makes it an offence under Australian law to contravene sanctions law. When committed by an individual the offence will be punishable by 10 years imprisonment or else by a large fine. When committed by a corporation it will be punishable by a maximum fine three times the value of the relevant transaction or transactions. This is important because long experience has shown us that when trade or other economic sanctions are imposed on a regime this sometimes creates an economic incentive for individuals or corporations to assist the regime by evading these sanctions. It is therefore important to create a negative disincentive in the form of a threat of heavy fines or even imprisonment to deter both individuals and corporations from trying to evade or sabotage sanctions. The bill makes it clear that sanctions busting will be a serious offence in Australia.

I now want to turn to what I believe is the most serious situation threatening the peace of the world at present and its relationship to these autonomous sanctions—that is, the determination of the Islamist theocratic regime in Iran to develop nuclear weapons and to threaten their use against neighbouring states. This situation has the potential to be the most dangerous threat the world has faced since the Cuban missile crisis half a century ago. Iran has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and continues to skirt its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On 31 May this year the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had expanded its atomic work, with its low-enriched uranium growing to 2.4 tonnes. Iran has been enriching uranium to 20 per cent, taking it closer to the weapons grade it needs for atomic weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency shows that Iran is pushing ahead with higher level enrichment and continually failing to answer the agency’s questions about the military dimensions of its nuclear work. Iran has failed to comply with UN Security Council resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and 1835 calling for Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and to suspend its proliferation without delay.

What makes the 31 May report most disturbing, however, is that the International Atomic Energy Agency and its nuclear inspectors have declared that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough to make two nuclear weapons. This comes on top of the Tehran administration unveiling a third generation domestically built centrifuge that enables much faster enrichment of uranium and reports that they have a four-year plan to test a neutron trigger, the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. My view is that unless the world shows itself willing to apply serious sanctions on the regime in Tehran, sanctions strong enough to make the regime change its course, there is a real danger that Iran’s behaviour will lead to a regional war, with totally unpredictable consequences.

Since 1945 the world has lived with nuclear weapons. During the Cold War there was a ‘balance of terror’, and the appropriate terminology was ‘mutually assured destruction’, MAD, the acronym which I think many people thought macabrely apposite. MAD and the balance restrained both the US and the USSR from considering a first use of nuclear weapons, although I do not believe at any stage either side contemplated it, because after all these were two big superpowers, two rational powers that would not want to contemplate their own destruction or their people’s destruction. However, when we look at Iran, we see a completely new situation. Since the eighties the Iranian regime has persisted in developing nuclear capacity. Despite the regime’s claim that this was for peaceful purposes, the program is more consistent with weapons development, and is shrouded in such secrecy that no-one really doubts that Iran’s objective is the development of atomic weapons.

The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said earlier this year:

Iran is a special case because, among other things, of the existence of issues related to possible military dimensions to its nuclear programme.

Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material is for peaceful activities. The obvious question therefore is: what does Iran want these nuclear weapons for? President Ahmadinejad has made no secret of the answer to this question. Since he took office in 2005 he has made a series of inflammatory statements calling for the destruction of the state of Israel, one of Persia’s neighbours in the Middle East. One of the best-known statements made in October 2005 was:

Our dear Imam—

that is, Ayatollah Khomeini—

said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map for great justice and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine.

               …            …            …

I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.

Two years later, in October 2007, the Iranian newsagency reported Ahmadinejad’s Jerusalem Day speech in which he said:

The zionists—

that is the 5.8 million Jewish inhabitants of Israel—

should be resettled in Europe or “big lands such as Canada and Alaska”.

He has made many similar statements. So have many leaders of the Iranian regime. In 2008 he said:

… the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map.

On the 60th anniversary, in 2008, he said:

Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken.

He also said:

Today, the reasons for the Zionist regime’s existence is questioned and this regime is on its way to annihilation.

Ahmadinejad’s repeated denial of the historical reality of the Nazi genocide of European Jewry must also be seen in this context.

With Iran we have a unique situation. We have a regime which is developing nuclear weapons and whose head of state has publicly and repeatedly called for a neighbouring state to be wiped off the map. This is not a regime that shrinks from violence. Last year the regime blatantly rigged the presidential elections which returned Ahmadinejad and his gang for another term. When the students and the young people of Tehran took to the streets in protest, the regime’s brutal thugs, theBasaj—very much like the Sturm Abteilung, or SR, in Germany under the Nazi regime—attacked them, killing 70 protesters and throwing hundreds into jails. There have been horrific stories from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of the torture and rape of hundreds of Iran’s best and most elite young people of Iran.

If the world wishes to preserve peace in the Middle East region indeed the whole world, the international community needs to seriously address the issue of Iran’s steady march towards the acquisition of nuclear weapons. President Barack Obama and his administration have a clear understanding of the danger that Iran poses to the peace of the world. President Obama has worked very patiently to persuade members of the Security Council to vote for a new round of sanctions, the fourth round since 2006. Winning support for these sanctions was far from easy. The main difficulty was, as always, persuading Russia and China that effective sanctions were the only way to respond to the Iranian regime’s continuing refusal to abide by Security Council demands that it halt its nuclear program.

The UN Security Council resolution 1929 on sanctions focuses on three targets: first, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which are a major pillar of the theocratic regime and which have enormous business interests; second, Iran’s shipping industry; and, third, its banks. In light of the passing of UN resolution 1929, the Obama administration on 16 June imposed its own sanctions on two top commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, five front companies of the Iranian state shipping line as well as 71 ships with names that had been changed to undermine previous sanctions.

Australia joined the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea in imposing autonomous sanctions on Iran. Australia has imposed autonomous sanctions on Iran since October 2008 and this legislation will bring a total of 21 Iranian individuals and 20 Iranian organisations subject to Australian autonomous sanctions. The two additional organisations are Bank Mellat, one of the four designated banks under the UN Security Council resolutions, and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line.

Earlier this year, using powers afforded to him under the Weapons Of Mass Destruction (Prevention Of Proliferation) Act, the Minister for Defence blocked and issued prohibition orders on three companies which sought to export goods that could be used in the development, production, acquisition and stockpiling of weapons. To be effective, sanctions must bring home to the ruling elite that there is a personal economic cost to them in continuing to back such a regime, which is dragging its country and 74 million people towards war. There is plenty of evidence of how Iran has been successfully evading the previous sanctions—for example, by rebranding its shipping fleet so that ships no longer appear to be Iranian owned. I hope these sanctions succeed in diverting Iran from this course.

Australia has done all it can to see that Security Council sanctions against Iran have been implemented, and we should also look at whatever ways there may be of using the powers contained in this bill to impose such sanctions on Iran. The bill gives us a legal framework to impose and enforce effective sanctions. We should explore the best way in which this can be done. We must also continue to put pressure on foreign companies and banks that continue to help Iran skirt UN sanctions. Forty-one companies have helped develop Iran’s oil and gas sector, which accounts for more than half of the Iranian government’s revenues.

The US House of Representatives and Senate have passed legislation aimed at strengthening sanctions on companies doing business with Iran, leading to a number announcing that they will end their operations in Iran. European insurance firms Allianz, Munich RE and Hanover RE have committed to ending business with Iran. Multinational firms such as Total, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Glencore and Vitol have ended their refined petroleum trade or energy investments in Iran and in July this year Iran’s gasoline imports were down 50 per cent. On 1 October, European oil firms, France’s Total, Anglo-Dutch Shell, Norway’s Statoil and Italy’s Eni pledged to stop investing in Iran. Australian sanctions, too, are biting hard on Iran. The Sydney based engineering contractor, Wolsey Parsons, has announced that it will not accept any more work in Iran.

Australia has pressured and must continue to pressure its own companies not to deal with the Iranians, and the way to do that is by publicly calling them out. We must also do this with banks that help Iran curb international sanctions. UN resolutions 1747 and 1929 designate four Iranian banks as banks that help Iran’s proliferation activities. Those four banks are Bank Sepah, Bank Melli, Bank Saderat and the First East Export Bank, a subsidiary of the Iranian Mellat Bank. Australia, under these resolutions, already imposes sanctions on these banks, but we should be doing everything in our power to ensure that Australian financial institutions do not indirectly involve themselves with these subsidiary banks.

This bill strengthens Australia’s ability to impose and effectively enforce sanctions against regimes which defy international law, threaten their neighbours and oppress people. I welcome this and hope we make effective use of the powers which this bill creates. I commend the bill to the House.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—In concluding this debate on the Autonomous Sanctions Bill 2010, it is appropriate to restate the importance of autonomous sanctions in international diplomacy. Autonomous sanctions are specifically targeted measures that are intended to apply pressure on regimes engaging in behaviour of serious international concern. The passage of this bill will ensure that Australia’s autonomous sanctions measures can be implemented and enforced under a single legislative framework, doing away with the need to rely upon existing instruments designed for other purposes.

I note the thoughtful and considered views in support of the bill expressed by members from both sides, including the member for Wills, the member for Melbourne Ports, the member for Fadden and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I acknowledge again the important matter of the domestic privacy implications of the bill raised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition during the previous debate. It is appropriate to reassure the House that privacy considerations were very much at the forefront during the drafting of the bill. I am aware that the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee intends to conduct an inquiry into this bill and I look forward to the outcomes of that inquiry.

In applying autonomous sanctions, the government must achieve a balance between measures sufficiently strong to be felt by those in power whom we seek to influence and be sufficiently targeted to minimise any unintended consequences for the ordinary citizens of the country concerned. The government must also be responsive to changes in the dynamics of a political situation to ensure that the sanctions measures continue to be a force for positive change. The bill will provide the government with the necessary flexibility to calibrate autonomous sanctions measures to ensure they remain relevant and effective. The government is sensitive to those who believe Australia’s autonomous sanctions should be broader than at present, targeting key economic sectors that sustain authoritarian regimes or which fund destabilising activities. The government is also sensitive to concerns that autonomous sanctions have the potential to disadvantage Australian businesses competing against countries which do not employ such measures.

In late May of this year the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, together with Austrade, brought together representatives of industry and civil society in every mainland state of Australia and territory capital to discuss Australia’s autonomous sanctions regime and the purposes and content of this bill. As the only goods presently subject to the autonomous sanctions restrictions are military goods, the Defence Export Control Office participated in these discussions as well. What these discussions showed was an understanding and acceptance of the role of autonomous sanctions and a commitment from industry to ensure compliance with these measures. The department will continue to engage with Australian industry and civil society on the implementation of this bill. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.