Senator Andrew Bartlett
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
 
Accommodating Tyranny

As I'm on an overseas delegation at the moment, it isn't surprising that the name of Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, comes up from time to time. I guess I should be diplomatic myself and say that I feel his performance in this very important role is less than consistent in its level of adequacy.

The attempt by a senior Chinese Consular official to seek asylum has rightly attracted a lot of interest in Australia (you can read some statements made by the Australian Democrats by clicking here, here and here.) But I found it particularly absurd that Alexander Downer had a column in The Australian this week attacking the Labor Party of the 1950s for being "too accommodating to communist tyranny" just days after his officials turned away a senior Chinese Consular official seeking asylum from the Chinese communist government. The wilful blindness of the current Australian Government over the last decade in ignoring and appeasing the tyranny of the Chinese government has been just as hypocritical, mealy-mouthed and complicit as the left-wing deniers of communist atrocities of the 50s and 60s.

For Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister who has presided over nearly ten years of appeasement of human rights abuses by Chinese dictatorships (not to mention other countries with an appalling human rights record like Burma), to try to lecture about alleged isolationism and appeasement by John Curtin – a Prime Minister who worried and worked himself right into his grave out of his concern for Australians during wartime – is simply breath-taking.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, June 07, 2005 Permalink
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