John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I listened quietly and I listened carefully to what the Leader of the Opposition said. Believing as I do in the parliamentary system, I think that a censure motion against a Prime Minister, whatever his politics may be, by the Leader of the Opposition on matters relating to national security is a serious issue. For 20 minutes I listened to the Leader of the Opposition and one thing came through to me loud and clear: the Leader of the Opposition had not a word to say, not a sentence to offer, not a second to dedicate to the question of what would be the consequence of his policy in October 2006. Whatever debate there may be—and I will debate in a moment all the allegations that were made by the Leader of the Opposition against me and my government about our decision to become involved in Iraq—and whatever may have been the debate three years ago, it is incumbent on all of us to face the consequences of the policies we now advocate. And it is incumbent on the Leader of the Opposition to face the consequence of the policy he now advocates.

In a rather conflicting way he said that we have a small but significant role. If we have a small but significant role in Iraq, it means that if we leave Iraq it is morally okay for the Americans to leave Iraq and it is morally okay for the British to leave Iraq and it is morally okay for everybody to pack up and leave Iraq. I invite the House, using the criterion of safety with which the Leader of the Opposition ended his speech, and I invite everybody in this parliament and in the general public to ponder for a moment the consequence of the course of action now being advocated by the Leader of the Opposition.

The Leader of the Opposition imagines that there would be a costless consequence of our leaving Iraq. If we go, the Americans could go and the British could go. If that is to happen before the Iraqis are able to look after themselves, does anybody seriously doubt that that would be an enormous psychological and actual boost to terrorism not only in the Middle East but also around the world? The Leader of the Opposition talked about the safety of this country, a country whose safety he declared on a radio program in Sydney a couple of weeks ago to be the best in the world. He talked about the safety of our nation. Does he imagine that the safety of Australia would be enhanced by an action that gave an enormous psychological boost to Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia? Does he imagine that the safety of this country would be enhanced by an action that would allow al-Qaeda to proclaim to the world that they had not only defeated their enemies in Iraq but also defeated their enemies in the United States and the United Kingdom?

The consequences to the safety of this country of an American humiliation in Iraq would be immense. The Leader of the Opposition has made no attempt to deal with that issue. He can lambast me as much as he cares to about our decision three years ago—and I will come to that—but the heavier burden on him is to explain the consequences of the policy he now advocates. He cannot be allowed, through personal vitriol and historical distortion, to escape the heavy obligation of explaining to the Australian people how an allied defeat in Iraq enhances the security of Australia. Because that is what the Leader of the Opposition is advocating.

Does anybody pretend for a moment that if the Americans and the British left Iraq the place would not descend into chaos? Does anybody pretend for a moment that if the Americans and the British left it would not be an enormous boost to the terrorists in Iraq? Yet that, in reality—unless the Leader of the Opposition is devoid of any kind of international morality, and I hope he is not—would be the consequence of our departing. Because, if it is good enough for us to go, it is good enough for the Americans and the British to go. That is unless, of course, we have acquired a new morality, unknown to the Australia that I believe in, that it is all right for anybody else to do the heavy lifting but we must not participate in any way.

This is the failure of the Leader of the Opposition in this censure motion. He can talk about three years ago. He can unload his vitriol on me. He can accuse me of all sorts of things. But let me just put that to one side. His obligation is to tell the Australian people how an allied defeat in Iraq would make this country safer. He is talking about the safety of Australia, he is talking about the security of our nation, yet he is advocating a policy that would give an enormous boost to the terrorist cause not only in the Middle East but also in our part of the world.

That is the central failure of the Leader of the Opposition’s speech. He has not explained, let alone justified, how the policy that he advocates could in any way make this country safer. I cannot imagine a more catastrophic defeat for the cause of the West and the anti-terrorist cause than a precipitate allied withdrawal from Iraq which plunged that country into chaos, yet that is the policy, stripped of all its verbiage, devoid of all its rhetoric, that is being advocated by the Leader of the Opposition. He had 20 minutes to justify to the Australian people, through this parliament, how it would make Australia safer for us to withdraw from Iraq but he said nothing about the present or the future. He spent 20 minutes talking about the past—a past, Mr Speaker, let me remind you, that is falsely encapsulated in the motion that he put forward. He started off by saying that we sent Australian troops to war in Iraq on a lie. That itself is a lie. And I call as witness for the prosecution of that charge none other than the member for Griffith himself, who made this very self-important speech to the Zionist Council annual assembly on 15 October 2002. I will say this very quietly and slowly, because it is a relevant reminder of the character of the debate three years ago. He said:

Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Speaker, if I was lying three years ago when I said Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, so was the member for Griffith. He went on—it got better; it is unbelievable in the light of what they now say he said three years ago. He said:

That is a matter of empirical fact. If you don’t believe the intelligence assessments, you simply read the most recent bulletin from the Federation of American Scientists, which lists Iraq among a number of States in possession of chemical, biological weapons and with the capacity to develop a nuclear program. Many of those States have concerns to the broader international community.

That was the belief—the informed, received and official foreign policy belief—of the Labor opposition three years ago. Their argument with us was not whether Saddam had the weapons but what we should do about it. That was the argument. The argument then was whether or not you would rely on the existing resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations or whether you would seek further resolutions. The debate was not about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Even Jacques Chirac believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction three years ago. That disposes of the central charge made. It was not a lie; it was the belief of this country, it was the belief of the opposition, it was the belief of the Americans, it was the belief of the French and it was the belief of most of the international community. The real debate then was whether or not we should take action in advance of a further resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

We went and joined the military operation in the war in Iraq based on our belief at the time that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. It was a belief that was shared by those who sit opposite, although not all of them. I know some of them did not believe it, but those who claim authority and knowledge in foreign affairs—and all of those are represented in the member for Griffith—argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We also joined the coalition operation because of our belief in the United States alliance. I do not make any bones about that. I did not make any bones about it three years ago and I will never make any bones about the close relationship between this country and the United States.

We also shared in common with the rest of the world a detestation of the nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and it still is the heavy burden of those who sit opposite that, if their advice had been followed, that bloodthirsty dictator would still be butchering people in Iraq. It is still the heavy burden that is carried by those who sit opposite because, when you carry a particular responsibility, you have an obligation to follow through on the consequences of the policies you advocate and, just as the Leader of the Opposition refused in 20 minutes to explain why a policy that would make Australia less safe should be embraced, so it is that the opposition have continued over three long years to pretend that the consequences of their policy, if followed, would not have kept Saddam Hussein in office and in power over the last three years, with all the consequences that would imply.

As I listened to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition the other thing that struck me, apart from his total refusal to say anything about the consequences of his policy, was the way in which he tried to establish the case that Australia had become a terrorist target as a result of the operation in Iraq. The Leader of the Opposition knows that this country was a terrorist target even before 11 September 2001. He knows that the Bali attack, which remains the greatest single terrorist attack in its impact on Australian lives and its impact on this nation, occurred before the operation in Iraq. Not even the Leader of the Opposition can somehow or other in a convoluted fashion retrospectively establish that the real reason that the Bali attack took place was our involvement in Iraq. I read out in question time the remarks that were punched into Samudra’s laptop by that person responsible, along with others, for the murder of 88 Australians, indicating that while ever coalition forces remain in Afghanistan then coalition people, foreigners, Westerners, Australians, Americans, British and Europeans would be subject to attack.

If I may return to what I said at the beginning of my speech, it remains the case that I have an obligation, the Leader of the Opposition has an obligation and all of those who participate in this debate have an obligation to tell the Australian people the natural consequences of the policies they advocate. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that what he is now advocating would result in a humiliating defeat for our greatest ally. What he is now advocating would result in a humiliating defeat for the values and the causes in which we believe. Does the Leader of the Opposition really imagine that it would make Australia safer to give the terrorists a victory in Iraq? Does he really imagine that, by giving the terrorists a victory in Iraq, they would not trumpet that around the world, that they would not go the length and breadth of Indonesia recruiting people for JI as a result? Wouldn’t they be able to say to the young recruits in Indonesia, ‘We defeated the Americans, the British and the Australians in Iraq; why don’t you please come and join us?’ The reality is that the policy of the Leader of the Opposition is a policy of surrender, a policy that would make Australia less safe and a policy which is devoid of the moral responsibility for which this country is widely respected and rightfully acclaimed.

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