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

This week, 23 October, marks the 29th anniversary of the Paris peace accords in Cambodia. Australia, of course, played a key leadership role in bringing the accords together. The world made a promise through the accords to the Cambodian people to support peace, democracy and human rights and to support Cambodia to remain non-aligned in the community of nations. Twenty-nine years on, peace, I think it's fair to say, has largely been achieved, ending the violent conflict of the Khmer Rouge and then the Vietnamese occupation. But, sadly, Hun Sen's gangster regime is leading the country further away than ever from a country that respects human rights and implements true democracy. There's growing evidence of China exporting the authoritarian model holus-bolus, propping up Hun Sen and his CPP cronies.

The 1991 accords have a formal mechanism, article 29, which signatories to the accords can trigger, which would bring together the countries in the event of serious violations of human rights. They're still in force. The current approach of the international community is clearly not working. The Cambodian people are suffering. I call on the government, 29 years on, to honour our promise, to honour the signature that we placed on the documents, to make it mean something, to honour that promise to the Cambodian people, and to consider activating article 29 and looking at tougher measures from Australia—asset freezes, visa bans—on people from Cambodia and other countries who commit serious human rights violations.