Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my honour tonight to speak of the Dalai Lama and my recent trip to Dharamsala meet him—a highlight of my life—and to meet with the Tibetan government in exile. It's a particular honour to do so in the presence of Mr Karma Singey and members of the Tibetan community here in Canberra.

Last night was a special night. The Dalai Lama starred at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony in LA. He won Best Audio Book for his album, Meditations: The Reflections of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It's not every 90-year-old international leader who wins a contemporary music award like the Grammys, and he won to world acclaim. But then, there is nothing ordinary about the Dalai Lama. This award wasn't just a win for an album but global recognition of the message that the Dalai Lama has championed in every year since 1959 when he was exiled from his beloved home of Tibet and began his long march for human rights. I congratulate the Dalai Lama on his award. Receiving it, he said:

I truly believe that peace, compassion, care for our environment, and an understanding of the oneness of humanity are essential for the collective well-being of all eight billion human beings. I'm grateful that this Grammy recognition can help spread these messages more widely.

In an immediate illustration of the political hostility of the Chinese government to the message of the Dalai Lama and the human rights of the people of Tibet, the Chinese government attacked the award as a tool of 'anti-China political manipulation'. Anyone who listens to the Dalai Lama's album will see the absurdity of this attack. Anyone who knows the history of Tibet and the determination of the Dalai Lama to foster democracy in Tibet can see this attack for what it is: hostility to the freedom of expression and the rights of Tibetans, including their spiritual leader.

On my trip to Dharamsala, I was proud to represent the Australian All-Party Parliamentary Friends of Tibet. On the delegation, I was joined by fellow parliamentarians Kate Chaney MP and Sarah Witty MP. Other delegations of politicians from around the globe joined us in standing up for Tibetans—parliamentarians from New Zealand, from Fiji, from the Czech Republic, from France and from Chile. We met with the Dalai Lama and with representatives of the Central Tibetan Administration, including its leader, the Hon. Sikyong Mr Penpa Tsering, the speaker of the parliament and many hardworking courageous ministers in the government.

Our visit coincided with the year-long 90th celebration of the Dalai Lama's birthday, a celebration shared by so many people across Australia at all kinds of events and parties. When we met with the Dalai Lama, he spoke of the rights all humans should share, rights that too many lack in practice, including in Tibet under oppressive Chinese rule: the rights to freedom of spiritual practice, culture and language, and the right to democratic control of life and country. We met the Dalai Lama on the 36th anniversary of the award of his Nobel Peace Prize and on International Human Rights Day. It was a joyous day of celebration.

Every year here in our own parliament, Australian parliamentarians join with the Australian Tibetan community to celebrate Tibetan culture and to call for human rights for all Tibetan people. We discussed the ongoing actions of the Chinese government in repressing these rights with terrible consequences for the six million Tibetans living in Tibet and to the great cost and sorrow of Tibetans all over the world, including in Australia, who experience growing surveillance and intimidation through transnational repression.

On our visit, we heard many stories from Tibetan exiles who had left their home country, often in dangerous circumstances, because they were unable to speak out or protest the occupation of their beautiful country without fear of arrest or torture. Even to carry a picture of the Dalai Lama was a dangerous act resulting in long political imprisonment. Tibetans face, as His Holiness has described, a calculated and systemic strategy by the Chinese government aimed at the destruction of their national and cultural identity. It will no doubt be impossible for Tibetans to publicly listen to the Dalai Lama's Grammy-Award-winning album and its message of peace.

Too many young Tibetans are forced to leave their country and their families behind to pursue basic freedoms. Too many are jailed for expressing love and support for the Dalai Lama. We heard their stories directly from them. They are heartbreaking. One young woman, when 15 years old, was jailed for five years without visitors for carrying a picture of the Dalai Lama. Too many children are removed to colonial boarding schools and subject to loss of language and traditions that amount to cultural genocide. These are fatal cultural losses that we know from our own Australian colonial history and into our present that cause untold intergenerational harm to children who are removed from their families, culture, spirituality and language in an evil regime deliberately designed by the Chinese government to deny Tibetans their cultural identity.

From here in the Australian parliament, here in the Senate, as a member of the Australian All Party Parliamentary Friends of Tibet, I say: we see you. I say to every brave Tibetan living in Tibet or in exile who is unable to exercise their human rights: we see you. You are entitled to the rights of freedom and to your culture, spirituality and language.

The Dalai Lama is loved throughout the world, including by many within China, for his steadfast commitment to nonviolence in the face of great provocation. He is loved for his courage, his sense of humour and the vision of human rights that he offers to the world. Most important is the right of the Tibetans to determine the identity of the next Dalai Lama following their own spiritual and cultural practices. Tibetans must have the right to choose a future Dalai Lama using their traditional processes without the interference of the Chinese government. The world would see such interference for what it is, a trampling of the human rights and spiritual freedoms of a people.

We must take stronger action right now to protect the Tibetan people. We must see sanctions against Chinese government officials responsible for policies that are harmful to Tibetans and for gross human rights violations inflicted on Tibetans. Australians will continue to stand across political parties in this parliament for the freedom of Tibetans living in oppression, unable to speak out or protest the occupation of their country without fear of arrest and torture.

In his poetry and words on his Grammy-Award-winning album, the Dalai Lama speaks of peace. He asks us to never give up. We will not give up on Tibet. We Australians have an important role to play in standing strong with the Tibetan government in exile and the Tibetan people to retain their language, their culture and their political and spiritual practice on their own terms.

I gave the Dalai Lama a small felt red kangaroo made by a South Australian artist, Sandra Tredwell, when I met with him as a symbol of my own place, Adelaide, Kaurna country, the land of the red kangaroo. He placed the kangaroo inside his shirt, near his heart. I reminded him that kangaroos cannot ever go backwards. They can only travel forwards, just like the long struggle of the Tibetan people as they strive towards democracy and freedom. We walk at your side.