Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

It is a very broad statement. I point out to the member for Throsby that it was the member for Griffith who today and yesterday accused this government of aiding and abetting Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel. I am responding to that because I am deeply offended as a person who in this House has stood up for the rights of Israel and has opposed terrorism for 13 years in a very public way. I took deep offence and chose not to take a point of order during question time because I knew I would have the chance to speak on this MPI later today.

The member for Fowler also in her speech last year referred to the state of Israel as being involved in ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people. The member for Sydney in this place has referred to Ariel Sharon—a man who, by removing settlements from Gaza and bringing peace to the West Bank area, has done more for peace in the Middle East than many other people in Israel in the last 10 years and who today lies ill in a coma—as a war criminal. The member for Sydney has referred to Israel as a rogue state. The member for Grayndler, Mr Albanese, has given succour and support to the member for Fowler and the member for Sydney.

My point is that on this side of the House there has never been any ambiguity about our opposition to terrorism, our opposition to Palestinian suicide bombers and our support for the state of Israel. For the Labor Party to try in the last two days to link us to Palestinian suicide bombers is deeply offensive. They should hang their heads in shame for doing that and they should apologise to this side of the House.

The second reason I find this MPI utterly hypocritical is because of the hypocrisy of the Labor Party trying to clothe itself as the party which supports national security. It was only at the end of 2004 that the Labor Party—most members on the other side of the House today—supported Mark Latham to become the Prime Minister of Australia; a man that they knew, the member for Griffith must have known and the current Leader of the Opposition must have known did not support the United States alliance.

The most important touchstone of Australia’s national security is ANZUS, our alliance with the United States: the knowledge that the United States and Australia support each other in the event of ever facing a conflagration—which we hope will never happen—at some stage in the future. It has given us an alliance with the most important nation in the world today, the only behemoth in world political affairs. We are in the fortunate position of being closely allied to that country.

The Leader of the Opposition in the previous parliament did not support that alliance. The former Leader of the Opposition abused the President of the United States, George Bush. He called him a dangerous man. He said, in fact, that the alliance was the last manifestation of the White Australia Policy. He said the US alliance is a funnel that draws us into unnecessary wars, first Vietnam and then Iraq. In his diaries, he makes it perfectly clear that if he had become Prime Minister the US alliance would have been put seriously at risk. He makes it clear in his diaries, in terms of national security, that he did not regard the US alliance as being as important as this side of the House did. So for this MPI to suggest that this side of the House has put national security and our trade interests at risk is deeply offensive to me and is obviously hypocritical. The Labor Party stands condemned for it.

The member for Griffith and the Leader of the Opposition supported the member for Werriwa, as he was then, in the election to become Prime Minister. They knew that he did not support the US alliance. They might have backed themselves in the vain hope that, if he were elected, they might have been able to control him. But, as various cameramen and others have found in recent years, the former member for Werriwa is not easily controlled. As the Treasurer said yesterday about what the former member for Werriwa would have done to the economy, as he did to a camera, we can say that he would have done the same thing to the US alliance if he had been elected as Prime Minister.

This side of the House can never stand condemned for putting our national interests at risk. This side of the House has fought the war on terror, enthusiastically tried to defeat terror wherever it finds it around the world. This side of the House supports liberty. It supports freedom. It supports democracy. It is trying to make a difference in Iraq. That is why we went into the war in Iraq: to try and bring about a change in world affairs, to defeat terrorism, to create democracy, to give people in the Middle East an opportunity to see that democracy can work in their nations and to embrace it, because democracies tend not to go to war against each other.

The other side of the House, the Labor Party’s side of the House, did not support the war in Iraq. They made it very clear. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition said he would withdraw the troops from Iraq before the job was done. So for the member for Griffith to stand up here and clothe himself in the hypocrisy of this MPI in an attempt to make the coalition side of the House the side that does not support national security is a farce and a mockery. The Australian public would know that to their very bones.

The Australian public know that on national security, on the economy, it is the coalition that will deliver good government. The public know that, when it comes to national security, the Labor Party is a risk. It was a risk in the sixties, it was a risk in the seventies and it would have been a risk again in the war on terror across the world. For the ALP to lecture this government on national security is akin to General Pinochet lecturing the Chilean people about freedom of speech. It is akin to Henry VIII lecturing the English people about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of families.

What we have really seen here in this debate and for the last two days is the member for Griffith’s audition for the Labor Party leadership, which is going slightly off the rails for him because he knows he is not going to get a scalp because there is nothing for us to be ashamed of. He wanted to replace Simon Crean. He talked about it, and he held various press conferences outside his home in Brisbane. He wanted to replace Mark Latham. He did his Hamlet act: ‘Will I? Won’t I? No, I’ll stand aside for Kim Beazley.’ We all know that he did not have any voters in the Labor Party caucus. The member for Throsby knows that he had no votes in the Labor Party caucus. But it was a brilliant show business line and it got him a lot of publicity. He is now out to get Kim Beazley. He is more Macbeth today than he was Hamlet back in those days. And this is all an audition for his desire, his ambition, to lead the Labor Party—nothing more. (Time expired)

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