Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Monday, 28 May the nation of Azerbaijan celebrated its 100th anniversary. The nation came about 100 years ago, in 1918, the first secular parliamentary democracy among all Muslim-majority nations. Unfortunately their democracy was very short lived because in April 1920 the Soviets invaded—and they stayed there for over 70 years. Our nation had the benefit of 100 years of colonial rule, of British settlement, to develop our institutions. Azerbaijan had 70 years of the corrupting influence of the Soviets. It should be noted that Azerbaijan is one of the few Muslim-majority nations to have formal relations with Israel. Israel's Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, visited Azerbaijan in 2016. In the centre of Azerbaijan's capital city, Baku, is a statue of a female casting off her veil. Although Azerbaijan is a fully Muslim country, they give full rights to women. In fact, the headscarf and the veil are banned from their schools. They try to ensure they're seen as a secular nation rather than a nation of any one particular religion.

I have been to Azerbaijan and I was impressed by the economic development of the nation and the city of Baku. We hope that this nation, situated between Iran to the south and Russia to the north, will develop strong democratic systems and continue to develop its economy in a strong way. If we look at the history of the world, we have the example of Singapore. Singapore became strong economically and democratically, and that spread to the other nations around it. That should be the world's wish for the nation of Azerbaijan: to influence the region, to be stronger economically and to be stronger democratically.

I would like to touch on the dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh area. I understand the concerns of the Armenian population here in Australia. I encourage all parties to, rather than demonising each other, have open dialogue to discuss the issues so that, hopefully, the dispute can be resolved along with the United Nations conventions.