A government can’t half care about human rights. And Australia’s ‘disagree where we must’ approach with China enables abuse and undermines our national interest
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A photo of former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews alongside the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, during a military parade in Beijing raised troubling questions. Earlier, former New South Wales premier Bob Carr sought to pre-emptively justify his possible attendance at the event (although he didn’t in the end) in an opinion piece.
While it is difficult for the Australian government to control the actions of former officials, the photo still raises the question how the two former premiers found themselves in a situation where they were either in a photo or contemplated attending an event with all these known grave violators of human rights. Perhaps it is because the Australian government sends mixed messages about responding to human rights abuses when committed by some governments.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.