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

That is the truth and that is the second insubstantial ground on which this motion is built. First, the Leader of the Opposition falsely asserts that we have been poll driven on Iraq. I have to say again that it was the most poll defiant decision I have taken in the 10½ years that I have been Prime Minister. I took it against the advice of the polls because I believed the action I was taking was right. That is our position. Second is the idea that the Leader of the Opposition has always been a crusader against what we were doing. He believed Iraq had WMD. He sort of accepted that once there was an American build-up they had to go in and do it and he was all ready to jump in and say, ‘I told you so. You should never have taken such an outlandish anti-American position.’

That really brings us down to what really matters about this debate. What really matters about this debate is: how can the Leader of the Opposition justify making the Australian people less safe by his policy on Iraq? Because what the Leader of the Opposition is arguing for is a course of action that will not only give an enormous propaganda boost to the terrorists in Iraq, it will not only provide al-Qaeda with another platform in Iraq, as they have in Afghanistan; what the Leader of the Opposition is advocating is a course of action that will embolden the cause of Islamic fanaticism and fascism all around the world. The great fight for the soul of Islam is being fought between moderate leaders like General Musharraf in Pakistan and President Yudhoyono in Indonesia against the fanatics of al-Qaeda and the fanatics of Iraq. By our actions, our deeds, our retreat, our lack of resolve and our lack of will, if we provide them with an enormous propaganda victory, which the Leader of the Opposition advocates, we will live to rue and lament that day for many years into the future.

I do not pretend that things in Iraq are easy and I do not pretend for a moment that the struggle is easy. But I do know this: if we go from Iraq, the Americans and the British have the same moral right to go as we have. And if we all go from Iraq we will deliver a victory to the terrorists, we will betray the democratic hopes and aspirations of the Iraqi people, but, worst of all, we will bring to the terrorists on our doorstep a sense of hope and encouragement that they will use as a recruiting weapon, as surely as we sit in this parliament today, to recruit people for the jihad cause against moderate Islam, the forces and the values of the way of life that all of us hold so dear.

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