Page 3702 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
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I trust that the media will recognise that we have had some communication and drafting disagreements on this floor, and I trust that we will not put forward out of this Assembly the suggestion that we have been in any way churlish or reserved about the nature of Mr Mandela's status and visit to Australia.
On the subject of communism, there is ample reference to those arguments and issues in the authorised biography of Nelson Mandela. I am not going to enter into a debate as to whether he has been a communist, is close to communists or is involved with communists. What is the historical relevance of that? All that Mr Duby was doing was painting a picture of Mandela by way of general introductory background. He was not talking, as far as I read it, about any current perception of Dr Mandela. He was simply indicating that, if the Assembly committee is going to look at such issues as the naming of places, then, as the national memorials legislation requires, we need to look carefully at all those issues, including the backgrounds. No doubt that will be done in due course, and the introductory words drafted by Mr Duby or for Mr Duby at short notice may well be adjusted in the light of the inquiry of the Assembly's planning committee. There is no suggestion that there is an historical hangover in Mr Duby's reference to any of the former or present associates of this great man.
I am very pleased that, as a sitting parliamentary assembly, we have found the time to debate this matter today, and I trust that the manner in which we have slightly altered the drafting will meet with the agreement of most Territorians, for that is our objective.
MR STEVENSON (11.23): In 1961 Mr Mandela was appointed the leader of MK, the military wing of the ANC. In 1964, on 11 June, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for promoting sabotage and the violent overthrow of the South African Government. Later on, in 1985, Mandela rejected the South African State President's offer of release on the condition that he renounce the violent overthrow of the South African Government as a means to Mandela's political ends. He refused to do that. There has been a suggestion that Mandela was a political prisoner while he was in gaol. That, basically, was renounced by Amnesty International when it said he did not classify as a political prisoner. On 13 September 1985 a statement was issued by Amnesty saying:
Amnesty International ascertained that Mandela has participated in planning acts of sabotage and inciting violence, so that he could no longer fulfil the criteria for the classification of political prisoners. At the end of his trial, Mandela delivered a speech wherein he said that after all his peaceful action he had concluded that the only chance for a change in South Africa was through violence.
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