all his comments we wanted to talk about other things as well but he has agreed to send us the detailed criticisms that he has made of this first report, which will be very helpful. And we've guaranteed, of course, that it will be considered and we are looking forward to getting that detailed critique.
Question: Senator, bearing in mind China's current human rights record, do you think it's right that they should be awarded the Olympic Games for the Year 2000?
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Senator Schacht: Well, as an Australian, I automatically support Sydney so it's not an issue anyway human rights or any other way. I'm a very gung-ho Australian who believes that Sydney is better than any other city in the world for the Olympic Games for the Year 2000, so for me it is not an issue that I can raise in human rights terms because even if China had the best human rights record in the world, I would still be supporting Sydney. So I must say, for our delegation this has been raised by others it's a bit hard to go in and argue human rights and the Olympic selection process when we are all loyal Australians who want Sydney to win and could be considered as having a slight self-interest and so on. I think other countries have to make that judgment about whether human rights is an issue. I generally think human rights is an issue that ought to be always considered in any number of international decisions, including the Olympic Games. But any other international issue, I've always argued human rights is not something you put off in a category and leave by itself, it ought to be weighed-up. But we were all sensitive of the fact that if we had raised it to say: "Look, if you don't improve your game on human rights, well you won't get the Olympic Games for Beijing. Their immediate response would be: "Well, we can ignore that, Senator, because you're all supporting Sydney because you're Australians." And I think that would have been a pretty hard repost to come back at, because, yes, I'm committed to supporting Sydney, Mr MacKellar and Senator Bourne both come from Sydney so they are for it. But I have no doubt other people will raise the issue of human rights generally in China and it may have some influence. I also think the biggest issue the Chinese have to sort out is whether they want to spend that amount of money on developing the facilities for the Olympic Games for Beijing in the Year 2000, whether that is the best use of their resources for developing the infrastructure of their country. And I understand inside China, that is a pretty vigorous debate, about the allocation of resources within the country, whether it all should be spent on the Olympic Games for Beijing.
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Question: But the games are almost like a central plank of Chinese foreign policy at the moment. You know, it's all part of a campaign to convince the world of a new openness.