The Government and Opposition yesterday voted down a motion from Greens Senator Scott Ludlam congratulating the Dalai Lama on celebrating his 75th birthday in July and expressing hopes for a peacefully negotiated settlement between the Tibetan people and the People’s Republic of China.

This was the ninth motion on Tibet in a row to be rejected by both the main parties. Speaking in a debate back in February on a motion calling on the Prime Minister to meet the Dalai Lama, Senator Bob Brown called this pattern of blanket rejection of all motions on Tibet “an extraordinary abuse by the government of the Senate”.

A total of 14 motions on Tibet have been put to the Australian Senate by the Greens since the election of the Rudd Government in 2007, 10 of which proceeded to a vote. Of those 10, only an urgency motion from Senator Brown three days after the beginning of the 2008 crackdown and calling for “strong, decisive action by the Government to insist that international laws and norms, including those safeguarding human and political rights and media access are observed by China” was passed.

Both the Government and the Opposition have rejected all subsequent motions on Tibet, usually on grounds that “complex international matters should not be dealt with by means of formal motions”. While such an argument may seem reasonable against motions that challenge existing Government policy or call for specific action, the same argument has been used to vote down a succession of motions simply acknowledging the situation in Tibet, reinforcing the Government’s stated policy, condemning China’s use of the death sentence or welcoming positive developments such as the resumption of the Tibet-China dialogue.

“It seems that whichever major party gets into office, they immediately go to water because there is fear of what the communist authorities in Beijing will say,” said Senator Brown in a debate last August on a motion to invite the Dalai Lama to sit in the distinguished visitors gallery on the floor of the Senate during his visit to Australia.

Yesterday’s motion, one of two concerning Tibet (the other a similarly innocuous motion relating to the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Xi Jinping) merely noted His Holiness’s upcomming 75th birthday, acknowledged his many accolades including 1989’s Nobel Peace Prize and expressed hopes for a peacefully negotiated settlement between the Tibetan people and the People’s Republic of China.

“The Senate is about to vote on congratulating his Holiness the Dalai Lama on celebrating his 75th birthday. That is a complex foreign policy matter if ever I heard one!” said Senator Ludlam during the debate on the motion.

“There is nothing at all in this motion that contradicts to my knowledge Australian government foreign policy or indeed the foreign policy of the opposition…. What kind of signal does it send to vote against a motion expressing hopes for a peacefully negotiated settlement between the Tibetan people and the People’s Republic of China? … I do not understand quite how it is that senators and members from both of the old parties can stand up and have their photos taken with the Dalai Lama when he comes to Australia and yet sit on this side of the chamber and vote against something like congratulating him on his 75th birthday.”

Read the full debate on this motion

Read the debate on the motion on the Visit of Chinese Vice President, Xi Jinping