Thursday 10th and Friday 11th December have been great days for relations between the peoples and leadership of Ukraine (45 million) and Australia (24 million). Ukraine’s new democratically elected, modern and western-looking President, Petro Poroshenko, has enjoyed an enormously successful and intensive visit to Australia. Together with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, Poroshenko was mobbed by nearly 2,000 members of the Ukrainian diaspora on Thursday morning who were attending a moving tribute to the victims of MH17. On Thursday night, Mr and Mrs Poroshenko, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimken and the President’s Chief International Affairs Adviser, Valeriy Chalyi, were given an Honour Guard with a 21-Gun Salute at the Governor General’s residence in Yarralumla. As his Parliamentary Secretary, I represented Opposition Leader Bill Shorten at the State Dinner and heard the Ukrainian President tell Australia of his plans to modernise Ukraine and end corruption: “one day in the future Ukraine will be as economically vital as Australia.” A big compliment. On Friday, Ukrainian President Poroshenka, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made an important foreign policy address to the Sydney think tank the Lowy Institute, ending a powerful visit to Australia. Australia’s hardworking Ambassador to Poland, Jean Dunn, has supervised the setting-up of Australia’s newest diplomatic post in Kiev. My own interests in this larger country in which Australia had no democratic representation were sparked by a visit to Kiev in 2004 with my dear friend Brain Meltzer. Perhaps I was the first Australian MP to visit after the Orange Revolution. While I was there for an international conference that allowed us to meet Ukraine’s first independent and democratic leader, Yushchenko, my visit of course included a side-visit to Babi Yar, the terrifying ravine where tens of thousands of Jewish women and children were stripped naked and slaughtered by the Einsatzkommando (danbymp/component/content/article/19-unassignedpages/1265-democracy-conference-in-kiev.html). Working on the principle that one must consistently speak out against all genocides, I have been the sponsor of Parliamentary resolutions. A bipartisan and positive attitude to Kiev now exists in wide swathes of Australia’s political leadership, which was reflected in the way the Ukrainians were so enthusiastically received. Of course the context to the upscaling of relations between the two countries emerged out of the tragedy of the shoot down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 by Cossack hooligans operating in the pay of Russia. Some unlikely and far away countries such as the Netherlands and Malaysia have become aware of Ukraine’s struggle for independence from Mr Putin’s successful acquisitions of territory by force (Crimea) and confirmed aggression in Donetsk and Luhansk to do the same. Now, with bipartisan support, Australia is providing some millions of dollars in Humanitarian Assistance to Ukraine as it undergoes its difficult economic transition. It’s clear to see however, with a modern, business-like, transparent and open leader like Mr Poroshenko, it’s possible that his hopes for his country’s economic and democratic position will come to pass.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 06:08:58 +0000
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