Page 483 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 23 March 2022
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We are committed to peace. This ACT government is committed to peace. I am committed to peace.
As a Green, peace and non-violence are at the core of what I believe. Today we share our grief and our anger but, much more importantly, our solidarity with the people of Ukraine to demonstrate to them that, half a world away, we support them and we demand an immediate end to this war of aggression. We demand respect for international law. We demand respect for the sovereignty of Ukraine and we utterly reject Putin’s excuses in seeking to justify this violent invasion. We condemn Putin’s utterly inhumane and horrific threats to use nuclear weapons. We call, first and foremost, for peace and support for the democratically elected Ukrainian government.
It is also important for Australia to impose further economic and political sanctions on Russia. As the Attorney-General said a few days ago, we need to throw the kitchen sink at this to maximise the pressure as fast as possible, because every delay further imperils the people of Ukraine. They need our support immediately and we must apply even more pressure without delay. One of the immediate actions Australia must add to the steps it has already taken is to ban the import of Russian oil, joining the US and the UK. Over the last decade Russia has exported over $4.3 billion worth of crude oil to Australia, with $86 million last financial year, approximately one per cent of Australia’s crude oil imports.
Putin’s Russia is a petrostate, with 40 per cent of its revenue coming from oil and gas. Australia should stop buying Russian oil. For the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, the last thing Australia should be doing is fuelling Putin’s war machine. Boycotting Russian oil is a small but practical way that Australia can help and it ensures that Australia is not doing business with a dictator who invades his neighbours.
Most of all, though, I want the people of Ukraine, and their family and friends here in Canberra, to know that I still have hope—hope that peace can prevail, hope that this war will not escalate further, hope that the killing will soon end and hope that humanity prevails over carnage.
I have hope because I still have love. At the heart of peace is love, not just for friends and family who we know but for everyone, for all of us. We are all in this world together and we can only survive and care for this beautiful world in which we live if we can find a way to do that together, with peace and non-violence.
On Sunday I attended the ringing of the peace bell and heard the words “may peace prevail upon the earth” spoken in both Ukrainian and Russian. Those words, spoken by Canberrans who share our commitment to peace, have given me hope. May peace prevail upon the earth.
MR PETTERSSON (Yerrabi) (11.07): I rise today to share my anger and frustration at what is occurring in Ukraine. The invasion of Ukraine, a proud and independent nation, by the Russian Federation, acting on the whim of President Putin, has shattered the notion of peace on continental Europe. While Europe has not been
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