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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3035 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

If we were talking about, say, Ottawa seeking to change the human rights situation in Canberra over the way we deal with Aboriginal people and they said that they were not going to form a sister city relationship with us, we would say, "So?" and that would be the end of the matter. If, on the other hand, we had a sister city relationship with Ottawa and they were saying to us constantly how they manage their indigenous people, how they manage the North American Indians and the Inuit, and were not trying to be didactic, of course we would be interested. Just as we look at how other people manage their systems, it would be something for us to consider.

That is one sort of approach. On the other hand, Mr Kaine and Ms Tucker have suggested that the way to handle this matter is just to say, "No, we are not going to do it and we will not have anything to do with you." That approach does work under certain circumstances. It worked, for example, in South Africa when the world basically said to South Africa, "No, we are not going to have anything to do with you. We are going to put on trade embargoes, financial embargoes and so on." The impact was significant.

The world is not going to do that with China. There has been no indication that the world is going to do that with China, so I think it is incumbent on us to say, "Can we reach out and try to persuade people that there are different ways of going about things?" That is the first part. The second part is that it is always easy to look at the way somebody else does things and develop a hate relationship. The potential that has across the world to deliver even worse outcomes is significant. For example, I am delighted to have one of my children studying Chinese, choosing this year at college level to take up Chinese as a language because he is interested in China's culture and language. Whilst that can be used in a wide range of areas, it is interesting that by that sort of process we can understand better where other people are coming from and bring about our influence in that way.

I have to say that the reason I am supportive of this sister city relationship is that I think that we are likely to have much more success by taking this type of approach than we are by taking the hard line approach advocated by others here. I recognise where they are coming from. I understand their perspective. I understand why they would want to go down that path and I respect the view that they have. I have a different view. I think that we should take this step and I think we should work with these people and attempt to influence them through this sort of approach.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education) (5.44): I think I understand where Ms Tucker is coming from. I must say that I am rather impressed because she is one of the most left-wing members this Assembly has seen, yet she has brought forward a motion condemning repressive actions by a left-wing regime. Like Mr Moore, I can see exactly where she is coming from in terms of her concerns about arbitrary detention, torture and execution in China and I think that taking steps to try to rectify the situation is commendable. However, I do not believe that her cause would be served one iota by Canberra refusing to enter into a sister city relationship with Beijing.

Mr Moore has probably hit the nail on the head in saying that, unlike the situation with South Africa, the rest of the world suddenly is not going to stop trading with China and suddenly is not going to turn its back on China. I do not think that we are going to have a situation where China will be isolated like South Africa was isolated in relation to any human rights abuses. That simply is not going to occur.

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