Page 2810 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES (11.33): Madam Speaker, I indicate that I cannot support the amendment moved by Mr Stevenson, particularly with respect to the third paragraph. Mr Stevenson makes points about the inadequacies of certain international conventions. He has a view about that which we have heard before. It is not a view that I personally share, but he has that view.
The point here is that the Ugandan Government has agreed to those international conventions. The two conventions referred to - the Convention Against Torture and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights - are conventions protecting human rights to which the Ugandan Government has acceded. Whether the Ugandan people should be party to those treaties is irrelevant in this debate. The question is whether the Ugandan Government will pay more than lip-service to the treaties it has entered into. It is not a question of international treaty; it is a question of contract. The fact of life is that the most blatant abuses of power have occurred on the part of the Ugandan authorities and, therefore, it is the Ugandan authorities that should be held to account and encouraged to honour the agreements they have entered into.
I am a little disappointed that this debate has become as controversial as it has. I hope that we are able to support the thrust of this motion as it stands, without amendment. I remind Mr Stevenson that this motion is being passed in the same form by other Australian parliaments, and I am quite certain that they will not take out those last two paragraphs. It would be unfortunate in the extreme if our motion were to be significantly different from motions that are being passed by other Australian parliaments. I urge members to consider the impact we can have on the very important question of human rights in Uganda by passing the motion in this form. It is not a question of adding our own agenda or taking away from the motion to suit our own agenda. It is a question of making some impact which will be helpful to the people of Uganda. Let us not get sidetracked into other issues that really are sideshows to this important issue. Let us give this motion the support it deserves. We hope that it will have some impact on the human rights situation in Uganda.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.35): The Government totally rejects the amendment. It is an opportunity for Mr Stevenson once again to tramp out his socialist world government theory of the work of the United Nations, a view that both major parties would find offensive. The United Nations has been supported strongly by Australian governments of all persuasions since its inception. We have a proud record of support of the United Nations. We are one of the few original members that have always kept up their financial contributions to support the work the UN does in every part of the world. We have done that under both Labor and Liberal.
It is only an odd lunatic fringe that seems to take this conspiratorial view of the United Nations. It ill becomes us as an Assembly that we are having to go down this track on what should be, as Mr Humphries said, a totally supported motion. This motion is going before parliaments around Australia in identical terms. I wonder whether anyone else will bother to move these sorts of amendments in other chambers in Australia. This is an opportunity for us to commit ourselves firmly to the progress of international human rights, and I urge all members to do so.
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