Mr McCLELLAND(4.22 p.m.) —There can be no doubt that the problems which have been referred to by a number of speakers—and, I note, with some passion on both sides—are still continuing. For instance, in August, U Win Htein, the private secretary of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was sentenced to seven years gaol. That was after he was released last year from a six-year gaol sentence. There is no doubt that his arrest and sentencing by way of a political trial was for his political rather than criminal activity—something which all Australians would regard as abhorrent.

A short time before that—in June of this year—Mr Leo Nichols, a supporter of Ms Suu Kyi, died in Rangoon's Insein prison. I congratulate the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Downer) for making the following statement on Mr Nichols' death:

Mr Nichols' death once again focuses our attention on the brutal practices of SLORC. The political nature of his arrest, the harshness of his sentence and the conditions of his incarceration lead me to renew calls for the Government of Burma to reform its human rights practices.

Those human rights practices to which the minister referred were considered in some detail in a report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade which investigated practices in Burma, such as secret surveillance; the removal of any form of meaningful freedom of expression or freedom of the press; the removal of any concept of freedom of movement or freedom of assembly; the removal of freedom of religion; the prevalence of detention without trial and, indeed, substantially political detention; the existence of conditions in prisons involving torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment; and extra judicial summary or arbitrary executions—and we heard various accounts from speakers today of the numbers, as far as we can surmise, who have suffered that ultimate fate.

In addition, the existence of forced labour is renowned—it is, effectively, slave labour. There are no basic labour rights. They are a long way from adherence to any reasonable standards promulgated by the ILO. We heard both here today, and as indicated and examined in the report of the committee, of the existence of the trafficking in women and an increasing prevalence of AIDS.

I agree with the motion, which has been given some significance in being moved by the father of the House, the right honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair). However, I also note and agree with the suggestions of the shadow foreign minister, the honourable member for Kingsford-Smith (Mr Brereton), that it does not really go far enough. It is a little like the days of trying to break down Al Capone's hold on Chicago and his illicit trade by sending an auditor around and requesting that he gently disclose his books and release his resources. Because you are dealing with entrenched corruption of the most vicious kind, change will not happen without some force.

I note, for instance, that Ms Suu Kyi herself believes that further engagement with Burma should be conditional on democratic reform, and I think that must be the case. We have really got to the stage where we must up the ante. Any further trade or any assistance with Burma should be based upon their move towards genuine democratic reform, otherwise we will have more than a bushfire in our region—we will have a disaster which simply will not be in our international interests, our national interests or the interests of democracy.