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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3059 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
The Tibet Information Network reported that methods of torture inflicted upon Sonam Wangdue included suspension from the ceiling, beatings with electric cattle prods and deprivation of food. Tibet Information Network also reported, through an interview with a former inmate of Drapchi jail named Bagdro: "One morning he was taken to the apple orchard where he was beaten and subjected to the electric prod. We heard him calling for his mother and asking to be killed. We were all deeply upset and we wept."
Maybe if Mrs Carnell and her friends had visited the jail she might have a different view. Mrs Carnell and other members have said that they do not like abuses of human rights. They said that when we discussed mandatory sentencing, too, and I did remind them of the quote that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. Once again, that is what we see from this government. At least the Liberals are consistent, though. They are consistent in their refusal to acknowledge these issues and to take a role.
When I spoke at the International Conference on Healthy Cities I spoke about the World Trade Organisation and local communities. I made the point quite clearly in support of our minister for health's statements about how important it is to empower local communities and how important it is for the health of local communities to be able to engage in all sorts of discussions. I raised the issues of the World Trade Organisation and the international issues that are impacting and affecting many local communities around this world.
In particular, I want to talk a little bit more about the issue of trade, considering that that is what Labor and Liberal have both focused on. They seem to be telling us that if we have a flourishing relationship based on business with developing countries the human rights issues will resolve themselves. Well, they may be interested to know that since we have had freer world trade we have seen an increase in investment from multinational corporations into countries which are either dictatorships or the least democratic countries in the world. I guess it is pretty obvious why that would be. It is because there are fewer regulations, and people who might want to have high environmental standards or labour standards are shot or got rid of, and this obviously suits the profit motive of multinationals.
Another particularly interesting issue has come up in terms of free trade, which Mrs Carnell and her supporters and apparently the Labor Party like to raise. The benefits of free trade have now been questioned in the racism conference in South Africa which is occurring at the moment. Mary Robinson, the Human Rights Commissioner, for the first time has asked for the economic dimension to be put on the agenda because since freer world trade we have seen an increase in racism around the world. That is one issue, of course, that we do not have any real discussion about. In fact, we have not had any real discussion on any of the issues of substance tonight from the people who are opposing my proposal, which is that we do not support this proposal.
We have seen Mr Moore and others very busily looking at Hansard, trying to find something that somebody said once which is not consistent with what they are saying today. That is really tragic. A lot of substantial issues have been raised here tonight and they have not been addressed. Mr Moore's speech was offensive. I think he would be better to say nothing, as he so often does these days when he is selling out totally by
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