By Mark Dodd
OPPOSITION leader Kevin Rudd is facing accusations of hypiocrisy for not meeting the Dalai Lama when he visits Canberra next month, five years after chastising the federal Government for doing the same.
Five years ago Mr Rudd met with the Dalai Lama and said Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer should do likewise, but now, as federal Opposition Leader, he is refusing to meet the Buddhist leader.
“I think it’s pretty weak of Foreign Minister Downer to have somehow have fabricated this excuse that he is somehow too busy to have met the Dalai,” Mr Rudd told ABC Radio five years ago.
Greens leader Bob Brown said today Mr Rudd was misreading Australian public opinion by not meeting the Dalai Lama. Senator Brown said today the Labor leader should put the prime minister to shame and meet the Dalai Lama next month.
“Mr Rudd is not reading Australian public opinion which will be strongly behind our political leaders meeting the Dalai Lama and staring down the pressure from communist bosses in Beijing,” said Senator Brown.
Federal Labor backbencher Michael Danby has weighed into the dispute warning the government and Mr Rudd against “kowtowing” to China by avoiding the Dalai Lama.
The visit starts in Perth on June 6 taking in Melbourne, Bendigo, Geelong, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and the Suns.
Mr Rudd’s refusal comes after the Senate president Paul Calvert refused a request from Senator Brown to offer the exiled Tibetan leader a parliamentary reception, saying he had “to be mindful of international sensitivities on such matters”.
China has long opposed the representatives of foreign nations meeting with the Dalai Lama and recognising the struggle for Tibet.
Labor backbencher Michael Danby says Mr Rudd should hold the meeting and so should opposition foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland.
“If he (Mr Rudd) has got time, yes I would (support the meeting)(‘ Mr Danby said.
“He should be at least met at the level of the shadow foreign minister, which Kevin met him (at) before.”
A spokesman for Mr McClelland told the ABC he had not yet decided if a meeting would be held.
– with AAP
