Page 1012 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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MADAM SPEAKER: I am vexed. I am on my feet and you will listen. As is proper, I said before I suspended the Assembly, "I believe that it is the wish of the Assembly to now suspend". There was no dissenting voice, and I suspended the Assembly. When I said that I had the power to suspend the sitting of the Assembly, I exercised my power properly.
Mr Kaine: Under which standing order? The answer is that there is none, and you know it.
MADAM SPEAKER: Are there any further speakers?
Vietnamese Buddhist Community
MR STEVENSON (10.49): I stand to mention a media release that was put out by the United Vietnamese Buddhist Congregation of Canberra and Surrounding Districts. It was put out on 10 April and it began as follows:
The arrival of the first Australian Prime Minister in Hanoi today has coincided with a significantly remembrance day for the 60-million-believer Buddhist community in Vietnam and their 160,000 patriots living in Australia. Mr Paul Keating has said at Canberra Airport just minutes before his departure for trip to Laos, Thailand and Vietnam ... that he will raise matters of human rights violation in general and of the detention of Buddhist monks in particular while he will be in Vietnam.
The author said that Mr Keating's last-minute promise to talk about Buddhist detainees was perhaps made because of many serious requests by parliamentarians, Ministers, citizens and groups, and particularly by the current leader of the United Vietnamese Buddhist Congregation of Canberra and Surrounding Districts. He talked about some tragic situations that have occurred in Vietnam since 1975, when the new Government came to power. He talked about the imprisonment and murder of many of the leaders of their organisation, the confiscation of various welfare, educational, training, cultural and social institutions, the mining of its open-air monuments, the closure of its seminaries, the sending to the military and the forceful manipulation and disrobing of tens of thousands of its young clergy in Vietnam. He talked about the propagation of artificial crimes of Buddhism and forcing the remaining monks and nuns into registering their names, but surely not their minds, as members of the State-run VBC. He referred to the punishment of supporters of the appeal by this group in Vietnam for an independent church. It is a tragic story that he tells. He calls on Hanoi's leaders to stop forcing the churches to act as unnecessary political tools.
I think that the Federal Government could well stand up against what is happening over there. Whenever we talk about the recognition of particular countries we should always look at what is going on Particularly in our case, as we have a significant Buddhist community within the ACT, we have a better opportunity than most to realise what is happening over there.
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