Just prior to that, the President and the department failed to roll out the red carpet for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, his holiness the Dalai Lama, who simply wanted a visa to visit his friend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The great contrast in treatment of these two men illustrates that the government has its priorities very wrong.
South Africa has its own Human Rights Commission, presumably because the government believes that such an office plays a valuable role in the country. Now it is time to show the world that South Africa believes that human rights are important to everyone by supporting the establishment of a human rights commissioner in the Commonwealth. [Applause.]