Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I did not hear the whole of the member for Hunter’s contribution, but I am sure it was an erudite analysis of the failings of the Minister for Defence in the application of his responsibilities, particularly as they relate to the question of the Joint Strike Fighter. I know that the member for Hunter understands—and the member for Grey would also appreciate—that I have some interest in this issue. I have to say that I share the concern of the member for Hunter. I understand you also have an interest in this, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie, having been a bit of a fly-boy in the past. It was F111s, was it not? We need a far better response from this government about the JSF than we have got to date.

I watched with interest the Senate estimates committee hearings today. Although I did not hear all of them, what I did hear left me wondering. I was really agog at the prospect of our being told effectively that we are likely to get the Joint Strike Fighter any time between roughly 2013 or 2014 and, perhaps, 2018. That is not good enough. The capability gap which the member for Hunter spoke about is something that we as a nation ought to be concerned about. He is dead right to say that this should be an issue which is discussed far and wide, and we should not be sitting here copping the prospect of the government purchasing Super Hornets—a $4 billion purchase—without a reasonable debate in the community about whether or not it is the most appropriate thing to do. We have not had that debate. I hope that, as a result of the interventions by the member for Hunter and others, we do get a debate, because it goes to the very important question of the capacity of this government to look after the nation’s security.

It is very clear that this government has been asleep at the wheel in relation to these issues. There have been a number of examples—the Seasprite is yet another—of where the government has not been able to manage the Defence budget in an appropriate way, and that is a risk to all of us.

Those Defence issues are what I want to talk about today, but principally I want to talk about Iraq. The Prime Minister’s performance over the last couple of days in relation to this issue has, I am sure, amazed many. There has been a constant failure by the Howard government, in a public policy sense, from go to whoa. I note that this bill earmarks an additional $202.4 million for the Department of Defence, including $120.8 million for Operation Astute in East Timor, $49.6 million for the first stage in lifting the retention and recruitment of ADF personnel and $32 million as the first instalment on increasing the size of the Army by one battalion.

I have no difficulty in supporting those budgetary measures. However, in relation to Iraq, it is very important, when we are contemplating these budgetary measures, to see how we have been dealing with defence and foreign policy issues. It is clear to me, and I am sure it is clear to the bulk of the Australian community, that the situation in Iraq is very grave and is deteriorating day by day. That of course was the opening assessment of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report, which was issued in December of last year. In unusually sweeping and blunt language, that study group rejected the ‘stay for the course’ option that the White House and the Howard government, in tandem, have constantly adhered to. It called for a gradual withdrawal of American combat troops, greater self-reliance by the Iraqi government and diplomatic engagement with Iraq’s neighbours. Of course, just last month the Bush administration requested an additional 21,500 troops together with more funding for Iraqi reconstruction and increased Iraqi responsibility for security.

It is no secret that we on this side of the chamber did not support the military engagement in Iraq in the first instance, and I recall well the comments that I made in the House during the debate that transpired when we took the step of joining the war. I warned then against aligning ourselves blindly with American foreign policy, particularly on a matter which we on this side of the chamber said then was against both our national and regional interests—and so it has come to pass. We were told that this was all about terrorism and we said that this would exacerbate terrorism and the opportunities for terrorism throughout the world—and, again, it has come to pass.

We note that when the Australian troops were first deployed, our Prime Minister said that they would be deployed for a matter of months, not years. Those are his words, not mine. Despite the public protestations, the opposition expressed here in this chamber and, I have no doubt, a degree of opposition within their own party room, this government made the decision to take us to war in Iraq and to commit Australian troops. By troops, I mean generically Australian Defence Force personnel, because we have deployed successive rotations of Army, Air Force and Navy personnel to the region.

Whilst I opposed the original decision and I oppose the continuing presence of Australian troops in the region and I think they should be brought home, we must ensure that, whilst our troops are there doing their service for our country as desired by the Prime Minister and the government, we give them our absolute and utmost support and ensure that they are properly equipped and are able to do the job they have been asked to do.

I am one of a number of people who had the opportunity, as part of a delegation of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, to visit Iraq in October 2005. The purpose of the visit was to visit Australian armed forces personnel deployed in the Middle East area of operations. In particular, in Iraq we visited the Al Muthanna Task Group, commanded at that time by then Lieutenant Colonel Roger Noble, stationed in Al Muthanna province in the south of Iraq. When we came back, I made the observation publicly that I thought once the next rotation had finished we should bring our troops home. I did not believe there was any further need for them to be there then.

They have now been given a different task and have been relocated to the province of Dhi Qar, where they have met organised resistance rather than the usual hit-and-run attacks. This alarming situation was reported in an article in the Bulletin on 5 December last year. The article contained an account from a source close to Darwin’s Robertson Barracks. It stated:

The Al Muthanna task group now patrols Dhi Qar, which only has one route in and out. This poses a serious threat to troops in vehicles. The current task group has already been in fire fights as a result of the expansion of the area of operations.

In one fire fight 2,000 rounds of small arms ammunition, 14 40mm grenade-launcher rounds and two rocket-launchers were fired [by Australians]. A sniper also fired 10 rounds from his weapon. Australian infantry soldiers have not been involved in fighting of this intensity since Vietnam.

So we need to be concerned, on the evidence of that article, about the safety of our troops in Iraq. Thankfully, our casualties have been limited.

After returning from Iraq I spoke on the quality of our troops, their training, their leadership, their professionalism and their motivation, and congratulated all those involved in Iraq for doing a very difficult task. I would do that again because there is no doubt that those troops who are serving our interests at the Prime Minister’s wont are doing so with great aplomb. Despite the danger, they are in fact very highly trained and very highly motivated, but the fact is that they should not be there.

When I came back, I said that I thought the situation in Iraq—a position shared by others, by the way—is one which is likely to be drawn out for many more months, even years. This is consistent with other opinions on the situation in Iraq then and now. Even Robert Gates, the recently appointed United States Secretary of Defense, gave a blunt assessment to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services when he conceded, ‘The war is not being won.’

From the performance of the Prime Minister today, we see that our commitment of troops to Iraq is of an indefinite nature. There is no plan to this mission. There was no mission statement at the beginning, there is no mission statement today and there is no plan for an exit strategy. We do not, as I said, challenge the professionalism of the Australian personnel in discharging their duties in this exceptionally difficult and dangerous operating environment. The core problem, however, remains that the ADF in my view has not been given a clear-cut mission statement and there is no way of determining, in the absence of such a mission statement, when the mission has been achieved.

You have to wonder about the basis on which you can send Australian troops to war if you cannot give them a reasonable expectation of what their mission statement might be and at least have a plan which says, ‘You’re going to be there for X months or X years and at the end of that period you’ll be withdrawn.’ That has not happened. We heard again today from the Prime Minister that our commitment is of an indefinite nature, and he has used those fateful words yet again: ‘until the job is done’.

But of course he has yet to define what the job is. Despite his attempts in the House of Representatives today at question time, he was unable to convince me, and I am sure anyone else who was able to listen to him, that he had a plan for Iraq, that he knew exactly where we were going with Iraq. He has no idea what the plan is for Iraq. All he is doing is relying upon the fact that the United States will determine its policy in Iraq and we will of course jump along lockstep, without question, in the same way, sadly, that the government was not able to bring itself to question the original decision by the United States government to enter Iraq in the first instance.

We can all remember those discussions, the debates in here and elsewhere about the reasons we were going to Iraq: weapons of mass destruction. It was to be a question of regime change. I can recall the words well of the Prime Minister. It was not a question of regime change; it was about weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons of mass destruction and it turned out to be only about regime change. Now we have a situation where, at a minimum, 60,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed; estimates in the Lancet take that figure to 600,000. We have been partly responsible for those deaths, despite what the Prime Minister might like to think. We did not know what the plan was and we still have not see the plan.

We know that the Iraq war is a quagmire. In my very strong view, Australia should not continue its involvement in it. We should be looking, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, for a plan to exit—a proper plan; a plan which will not have us withdraw immediately but in consultation with our allies: the United States and the other members of the coalition. Other countries have taken this step and it has not been the end of the world, but of course we were one of the troika involved in making the initial decision and in being the occupying power in Iraq leading up to the Iraqi elections.

The government has a moral obligation to tell the Australian community exactly what its strategy is for Iraq, when Australian troops will no longer be required and when they will be brought home. In fact, it is clear to me that the Prime Minister has got neither the guts nor the vision to do this. I think it has been abundantly clear over the past week during question time that he does not—he simply does not. He is not able or willing to accept the challenge of the Leader of the Opposition to have a publicly televised debate on the issue of Iraq policy. I would have thought, given his supposed credentials on the issue of national security, that he would not worry at all about having a nationally televised public debate with the Leader of the Opposition. He would feel confident in himself that he could convince the Australian community of the merits of the policy or lack of policy in Iraq. But, of course, he squibbed it. He is not prepared to front up to a reasonable debate with the Leader of the Opposition so that the Australian community can compare their two positions on Iraq—the position of the Labor Party and that of the government. I would have thought that a Prime Minister who prides himself in knowing so much and being so willing to support the President of the United States would have no difficulty in confronting a mere Leader of the Opposition here in the Australian parliament. It is a lot easier to commit troops to Iraq than it is to get out there and publicly debate with the Leader of the Opposition, it appears. I would have thought it is in our national interest to ensure that that debate happens and happens soon.

We know that recently, over the last week, the Prime Minister has tried to interfere in internal discussions in the United States—ultimately in the presidential election race—and has been rebuked widely from across the political spectrum in the United States for his unprecedented interference. I note particularly the comments of John Murtha, a member of the United States House of Representatives and a democrat, who is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald today, saying:

John Howard is trying to interfere in an election and that’s uncalled for.

Even his own backbenchers think he has gone off the track in relation to this issue. The member for Moore, Mal Washer, commented:

We’ve got a Western alliance, I guess you’d call it, where we’ve got to have some solidarity in how we approach these matters. Spreading it to the Democrats probably wasn’t such a good idea.

I think there is an obligation on the Prime Minister to tell the Australian community exactly where we are headed with this. He has failed to do so.

A number of things have passed us by in recent times, but it is amazing that even ranking US Republicans have expressed deep reservations about US engagement in Iraq—and, I would have thought, by extension, Australia’s involvement in Iraq. Francis Fukuyama, one of the darlings of Washington’s neoconservative establishment, has also fundamentally repudiated his original position. Fukuyama, in his book of last year, After the Neocons, said:

I’m not shocked. I’m completely appalled by the sheer level of incompetence. If you are going to be a benevolent hegemon—

a reference to America’s status as the sole superpower—

you had better be good at it.

We owe it to the Australian community to ensure that our Prime Minister and the government are held accountable for their policy in Iraq. The Prime Minister prides himself on saying that he understands and believes that he is the one to govern Australia in terms of representing Australia’s national interest, and our national security interests in particular. He has demonstrated by his failings in Iraq that he does not really have that capacity. The Australian community will have a chance to judge him later in the year, but I would say that before then he has an obligation to stand up in front of the Australian people, along with the Leader of the Opposition, and debate these issues in a nationally televised debate. The sooner he does it the better, because he has been exposed and it is very important that the Australian community understands how exposed he has really become. (Time expired)

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