Page 3722 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
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ADJOURNMENT
Motion (by Mr Connolly) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Nobel Peace Prize
MR COLLAERY (9.34): Mr Speaker, I rise to record here the great satisfaction many Australians, and many of those in the Amnesty movement, would feel at the award of the Nobel Prize to Ms Aung San Suu Kyi that was announced last night in recognition of her struggle for democracy against the Burmese military dictatorship.
I do not wish to say too much that could cause that person, who is under constant house arrest, any problems. I merely want to record that the ACT Amnesty groups have worked hard in relation to the problems in Burma and the restrictions of the military junta controlling matters there. I am very pleased to see that the Nobel Prize has gone to someone who, by force majeure, is working in the background, in fact almost under lock and key. The world is yet to hear more about this woman.
One hopes and prays that she will stay alive, that her safety and security will be guaranteed. I believe that it is a great credit to the Nobel Prize committee that they have seen fit to award it to this woman and so raise her profile to such a status that that military regime would find it almost impossible to justify any injury or damage to her during her continued unconscionable house arrest.
Mr Speaker, I put those remarks on the record, as chairman of the struggling Amnesty group in the ACT Assembly and on behalf of the fine Burmese friends some of us have, including a very effective spokesperson for the national liberation movement for Burma based in the ACT. I will not use her name here, but that person is known to me and to my colleagues Dr Kinloch and Mr Jensen. She is a most effective spokesperson for that democratic movement in Burma.
If Senator Gareth Evans is going to support the comments we heard yesterday from Mr Hawke at the meeting he is attending at the moment, it is time for Australia to raise its voice on human rights matters in the Asian region. I am sure he knows what we mean in relation to Burma and I believe that the Federal Government should move prudently but forcefully and assertively to have this woman taken out of her house arrest. She should be allowed to travel to Oslo to receive her Nobel Peace Prize.
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