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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3048 ..
MR OSBORNE (continuing):
Mrs Carnell argues that it will not appear in the media in France if we tear up this agreement. I can tell you, Mrs Carnell, that it will appear if you endorse it-or if you appear to endorse it, because if you do not support this motion you will give the appearance of endorsing what the French-
the Chinese-
are doing, and their propagandists will be quick to pick up that issue. So, let us stop kidding ourselves. We have here the opportunity to demonstrate to the people of the ACT that this is a people's chamber, a chamber that recognises its responsibilities as part of the world community even though it is a territorial government. It is also an opportunity for us to demonstrate to the people of Versailles that other small communities in the world are prepared to stand up on this issue-
but not on human rights issues-
and urge the people of Versailles and of other parts of France to reflect on what has occurred in relation to the performance of their Government.
There is no-one here from the Labor Party.
Here is a quote from Mr Wood:
We must react with the greatest vigor against the French and against China, although we do not have a sister city relationship with China...
According to Mr Wood it is okay to have a sister city relationship with China when there are numerous reports on their human rights abuses, but if we had a sister city relationship with China and they did some underground testing he would be in here and be very indignant about what they had done and would tear up that agreement.
Mr Speaker, I would like to table something that I took off the Internet. It is the report by Human Rights Watch entitled China and Tibet. I will not go through that because I do have some more documents to read. I will just read the first part:
Controls on basic freedoms were tightened during the year, in part because of Chinese authorities' desire to ensure stability on several sensitive dates. These included the fortieth anniversary of the March 10, 1959, Tibetan uprising, the tenth anniversary of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, and the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949.
Trials of dissidents-and there were many-were neither fair nor open.
I seek leave to table that, Mr Speaker. I also seek leave to table a number of documents from the US Department of State's human rights reports for 1999.
Leave granted.
MR OSBORNE: I table the following papers:
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