11th Sep 2023, 12:17 PM – Representatives Motions - Overthrow of Chilean Government: 50th Anniversary - Let a vote happen

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Griffith MP Max Chandler-Mather (Greens), which means it failed. The motion was to suspend the usual procedural rules of parliament - known as standing orders - in order to let another motion be put.

Motion text

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Griffith from moving the following motion—

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that 11 September 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the illegal coup against the democratically elected Allende Government in Chile;

(b) that 4,000 people were killed or disappeared, and 40,000 people were tortured under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet;

(c) the role that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and the Australian Government played in supporting the coup against the Allende Government, along with the United States' Government and the Central Intelligence Agency; and

(d) Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's subsequent decision to order that ASIS end their operation against the Chilean people; and

(2) calls on the Government to apologise to the people of Chile for the actions of the ASIS in supporting the coup and the harm caused by the dictatorship of General Pinochet.