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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4712 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Mr Speaker, having moved the amendment, it is important, I think, that we elevate this to the highest level. Having the leader of the ACT, the Chief Minister, write to the leader of Australia, the Prime Minister, sends the message that we believe that this should be treated at the highest level. With that in mind, Mr Speaker, the Liberal Party will be supporting this motion in this Assembly today.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (5.31): Mr Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking today on this, I think, very significant motion that has been moved by my colleague John Hargreaves. It is a motion that the government is certainly very pleased to be associated with and very pleased to have been involved in the moving of. It states:

That this Assembly recognises the strong desire of the people of Cyprus to be a unified and independent nation ...

I am happy to write to the Prime Minister and convey to him that that is the view of this Assembly.

I must say that I am very pleased that at this stage it appears that it will be the unanimous view of this Assembly that it is important that we support, show our solidarity for and recognise the strong desire of, the people of Cyprus and Greek Cypriots around the world for that country to be again united and unified; that it be a state of single sovereignty; that it be a state with its own individual international personality; that it have a single citizenship; and that its territorial integrity be recognised and safeguarded.

The history of events in Cyprus has been quite fully explained and described here today by others, in particular by my colleague John Hargreaves, but it is worth touching on the events of 1974-the invasion by Turkey of a sovereign state; the ultimate division of that state; the expulsion of 140,000 Cypriots from their homes, many of whom of course continue to live essentially as refugees within Cyprus and in other parts of the world.

Some of the human impacts of the invasion are still very much part and parcel of the lives of those that were expelled from the territory that was invaded and occupied. As I say, with 140,000 being expelled at the time, it is probably reasonable to assume that, as of today, exceeding 29 years, a total of about 200,000 Cypriots are no longer able to live in their own homes.

A very significant other human dimension to the invasion was of course the death-and we assume the death, because many Cypriots that were caught up in the invasion are still unaccounted for-or the dislocation to the point where it is assumed that they are dead of at least 1,500 Cypriots as a result of the invasion. Many of those 1,500 remain listed as missing today, with families suffering as a result of the continuing torment at not knowing the fate of relatives and of loved ones. Those are some aspects of the human dimension of this particular invasion, of this particular war.

As has been reflected, that circumstance continues today. Cyprus remains divided. Cyprus and the division of Cyprus through its invasion and occupation by Turkey have been condemned almost unanimously by almost all states of the world. The United States and Great Britain continue to condemn the division and the occupation. The United

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