The Hon. DAVID CLARKE [10.03 p.m.]: Recently my parliamentary colleague the Hon. Charlie Lynn gave an outstanding address to this House reminding us of the continued suffering of the Vietnamese people under a Communist dictatorship and informing us of important new initiatives of the Vietnamese Reform Party seeking freedom for Vietnamese, announced at a large gathering he attended in south-west Sydney recently. As one who was also present and who had the opportunity to address that gathering, I heartily endorse the comments of the Hon. Charlie Lynn.
In recent years we have witnessed the collapse and demise of Communist dictatorships in the now dismantled Soviet Union and in its satellite States of Central and Eastern Europe. What a great event that was for the people of those nations, who, as a result, gained the freedom and liberty so long denied by those regimes and the evil Communist philosophy that they represented. Sadly, there is still a small handful of nations suffering under Communist repression. One of these nations is Vietnam, where 80 million long-suffering people continue to be denied economic prosperity or religious and political freedom. They are denied everything except a life of misery.
Australia is a haven for many thousands of Vietnamese who have sought refuge from that bastion of repression and monumental economic basket case. On 7 November this year some 800 representatives of the Vietnamese-Australian community gathered in Sydney for the Australian launch of a new program of initiatives organised by the worldwide-based Vietnam Reform Party. All the major Vietnamese community organisations were represented. They met with great enthusiasm and determination. This party, which is organised throughout the free world and clandestinely within Vietnam itself, brings together under one political umbrella freedom-seeking Vietnamese on an international basis.
What is the aim of the Vietnam Reform Party? It seeks freedom and economic prosperity for the people of Vietnam and that will only occur with the demise of the communist dictatorial regime of that unhappy country. Overwhelmingly, the Vietnam Reform Party speaks on behalf of Vietnamese communities throughout the world and represents the aspirations of Vietnam’s long-suffering population. The party’s Vietnamese name is Viet Tan, a combination of the word “Vietnam” and the words “Canh Tan”, which mean reform and modernisation.
Whilst the reform party has been working for 22 years for Vietnam’s freedom, this recent great assembly in Sydney and assemblies internationally mark the party’s launching of new public initiatives that will highlight worldwide the plight of Vietnamese people. Communism has collapsed in Europe and the day is coming when communism will collapse in Vietnam as well. Nothing is more certain and nothing is more inevitable than that the oppression of the people of South Vietnam since 1975, and the communist oppression of the people of North Vietnam for an even longer period, will come to an end. It will end sooner rather than later because at the end of the day democracy will win over communism, freedom will be victorious over dictatorship and good will triumph over evil.
The age of dictatorships is coming to an end. The age of freedom for all peoples is now coming upon us. The Hanoi regime will not stop this march of history. Its day of accountability and facing the anger of its subject is getting nearer. Joseph Stalin is dead. Mao Zedong is dead. Ho Chi Minh has long been dead and buried. His name will be reviled and cursed in the annals of history as the epitome of evil. History will not allow the people of Vietnam to continue to suffer indefinitely. The yearning for freedom will not go unanswered forever. Vietnamese in Australia and elsewhere, and good people everywhere, have not forgotten them. That campaign for freedom will go on in Australia and the free world. It will spread to Saigon, perversely renamed Ho Chi Minh city, and then on into the heart of the Vietnamese communist heartland, right into Hanoi itself.
I congratulate the Vietnamese community in Australia on its renewed call and activity for the freedom of its homeland. I endorse the cause of the Vietnam Reform Party because it is the cause of freedom itself. I pay tribute to the Vietnamese-Australian community for not forgetting those who still suffer in their homeland. The great majority of the Vietnamese-Australian community will live to see democracy come to Vietnam. They will live to see their homeland gain its freedom. They will live to applaud the demise of communism in their homeland. What a great day that will be, and I will be celebrating with them.
