Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I am not surprised to hear the member for Hughes speaking on the Non-Proliferation Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. I know that she has a pretty good understanding of the nuclear industry and the nuclear fuel cycle, which, of course, is very relevant to her electorate. I know that, like most members of this place, she understands the significant contribution that nuclear technology plays towards health in this country in treating a number of deadly diseases in that area commonly coming under the banner of cancer. I appreciate her contribution to the debate.

I am of 1962 vintage, so I am just old enough to remember the Cold War. I think it is true to say that those of us who remember the Cold War take a slightly different attitude to nuclear weapons capability than those younger than me who did not live through that period. It was a period which, I suppose you could say, formally came to an end with the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Those of us who lived through that era grew up with American television and films: James Bond, Get Smart and programs and movies such as these which highlighted the very strong tussle between the West and the East. I think most of us remember the concept, if not first-hand then through television, of people having bunkers in their backyards to protect them from a possible nuclear attack of some sort. No doubt that is the reason why, in this country, we have such strong opposition to the use of nuclear energy for civil and peaceful purposes. Too many of us are scarred with the fear that we grew up with when we were younger. We all remember the fear, and I suspect many remember the Cuban missile stand-off with President Kennedy. We really were living under the fear of nuclear attack when I was growing up.

I suspect that people significantly younger than me are relatively complacent about the use of nuclear weapons, not having grown up with the fear of them and not having the threat of nuclear attack thrust upon them almost on a daily basis by television programs and movies. That may seem light-hearted, but it is very true. I fear that it is a complacency that is misplaced. The world remains one in which nuclear attack is not likely—certainly not as likely as it may have been in the three or four decades following the Second World War—but where it is a possibility. We have seen that in recent times with the stresses and strains in the Middle East in particular. North Korea, with an apparent nuclear capacity sitting not all that far away from our own continent, possibly has a capability for that nuclear capacity to reach our own shores. We have enormous instability with the emergence of non-state groups and rogue states, so this is not a world with a very good balance. We see the legitimate concerns of the Israelis about the ongoing refusal of the Iranians to comply with their obligations to the international community, to reassure them that their interest in nuclear does not go beyond energy and peaceful, civil purposes.

As the member for Barton indicated, Labor supports the Non-Proliferation Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. It is a bill that strengthens Australia’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and all of the issues that go with safeguarding us against the misuse of nuclear facilities and tools. What it does not do, and what it and any Australian government cannot do, is strengthen the foundations of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty itself. Only the international community, acting in concert, can do that. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is a treaty under much stress and strain.

My colleague the member for Melbourne Ports showed me some interesting research that he has done on new revelations about the Russian attitude to the Iranians. I know that he is going to say something about that, and I am delighted by that news. I will let him expand on that.

The problem for the international community is the nuclear non-proliferation treaty itself. It is a document which is now decades old, and many of the foundations on which it stands have been undermined and changed by the new paradigm in which we all live: the emergence of terror, rogue states and non-state groups. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is of course premised on the basis of state groups, not non-state groups. If I am wrong about that, I would be more than happy to hear some counterarguments, but that is certainly my interpretation and assessment of the treaty as it stands.

Of course, that treaty amongst other things does recognise five original nuclear states—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. One of the problems of that proposition is that of course we now have other democracies. Those five states also happen to be—not just by coincidence—the five members of the UN Security Council. But we now have other democratic states that also have nuclear capacity. Take India, for example—one reference made by the member for Barton—which still stands outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty simply because it cannot enter into the treaty without giving up its nuclear capacity.

I am at one with the member for Barton: India should sign up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and we should be very reluctant to be engaging ourselves in her nuclear fuel cycle without that commitment. Having said that, you can understand why a democracy like India is not prepared to forgo its nuclear capacity—with the neighbouring state of Pakistan with similar capacity. It is like asking them to take their gloves off but allowing their neighbour to leave them on.

While we do not have any sympathy with that view, I do acknowledge and recognise, as I am sure we all do, that this is a problem for the international community. How do we get the Indias of the world to agree? India is an emerging superpower and therefore probably sees itself, particularly given that it is a democracy, as a country that is legitimately entitled to have the same capacity as the Chinas of the world, for example, which are not democracies. This is a big challenge for the international community. That is the first problem with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which was first established in 1968. It is a very old document.

The second problem, under the second pillar of the treaty, is that we have this determination to ensure that the five original nuclear weapon states disarm themselves or at least significantly reduce their armaments, their nuclear capacity. But it has not worked—it has worked to an extent, but those countries have, over the decades, found many and quite often legitimate reasons why that commitment is not always possible.

The third pillar has many strengths. It is a commitment to ensuring that all nation states have a right to use uranium for civil and peaceful uses—in other words, for power generation. But in many senses the problems with the first and second pillars undermine the strength of the third, and that was the example given by the member for Barton. We have a situation in which India should be able to enforce its right to nuclear power generation but it cannot source the fuel it needs to do so because it is unable, it would say, to comply with the first pillar of the treaty. There is no point giving it the right to generate nuclear energy if it cannot get the fuel to supply its nuclear energy generators, and it cannot get the fuel to supply its nuclear generators because it is not part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Of course, it would argue that it cannot be part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty because it is not possible for it, in strategic terms—it would argue, not my words—to forgo its nuclear capacity when it has a neighbouring state which is also not a part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and which can maintain its nuclear weapons. I have not done my research on Pakistan’s energy needs, requirements and strengths but, for example, Pakistan might not have any need for uranium for civil purposes and therefore does not face the same dilemma that India does.

These are complex issues for the international community. I was very pleased to have visited the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last year to look at the very good work they are doing. The IAEA not only work towards nonproliferation but also assist various states in assessing their future in nuclear energy. Firstly, the states look at whether or not nuclear energy is for them, and, for various reasons, it sometimes is not. They have great expertise in helping nation states work through this process. Secondly, if states draw the conclusion that it is for them, they advise on how to put the civil industry in place without the threat of getting it wrong and therefore raising concerns amongst other nation states about nuclear proliferation. They also assist with putting it in place in a way that ensures the safety of their domestic community.

One of the strong messages I walked away with from the International Atomic Energy Agency is that it is underresourced—significantly so. One of the other issues that face the international community is finding the strength and the will to more sufficiently resource the agency to ensure it can continue to do its very good work—and, for all the reasons I have outlined, that work is getting more difficult and more challenging.

Labor supports this bill, which amends our domestic laws to strengthen our commitment to our various international obligations. I know that some of them are a bit belated, but we are not going to be too critical of that. We welcome their introduction in this place. I will close by reinforcing what I said at the beginning. We are living in testing times. We have emerging change in the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region. The Middle East is as unstable as it has ever been. I note that the member for Melbourne Ports is agreeing with that point and I know that he knows the strategic situation in the Middle East better than I do because it has great significance to a large slice of his constituency. In Africa we have significant problems as well. The old Soviet Union is struggling under its new form of democracy—I am not suggesting it poses a threat to us, but it all adds to the stress and the strain of what is happening geopolitically across the region. Cyprus is still divided and, although it is not in the daily headlines, it is still causing significant geopolitical stresses. Enormous energy issues are emerging, and that brings me back to what we now know as Russia. They now control much of the energy supply to many energy-dependent nations, and they have already shown their preparedness to cut off that supply to suit their own strategic and economic ambitions or protections, or the mix of the two.

Iraq, in my view, has been a disaster for this country—the worst foreign policy decision ever taken by us as a nation state. I was most disappointed by the Prime Minister’s response last night on the fourth anniversary of our intervention in Iraq. I thought he had to do one thing last night before any other: I am not going to say that he should have apologised, because he never does that, and I know he will not. I had no expectation whatsoever that we would get an apology from the Prime Minister for his decision to take us to war in Iraq: first to get weapons of mass destruction—very relevant to this bill—which were eventually found not to exist; second to impose regime change—something he said did not in itself justify any intervention in any nation state; and now, supposedly to bed down the fledgling democracy which exists in the country.

Of course, this is all despite the fact that his Minister for Defence, Dr Nelson, told us that victory is not possible in Iraq, nor is the imposition of a Western style democracy. On that basis, I am not sure why we are still there. However, I did expect the Prime Minister to attempt to take some responsibility for the mess in which we find ourselves in Iraq. There was no apology nor any acknowledgement that he got at least part of it wrong. He has never acknowledged that our approach to Iraq could have been handled differently.

I thought I might have heard the Prime Minister succinctly argue the case that Australia is now a safer place as a result of our intervention in Iraq. He talked more broadly and globally about the world being a safer place. He would argue that, but I do not agree. However, he did not specifically focus on whether someone going to a football match in Melbourne or Sydney is now more or less vulnerable to a terrorist attack today than they were before our intervention in Iraq.

The Australian people are entitled to hear the Prime Minister argue his case. His speech was simply a summary of his position on Iraq and the usual rhetoric about how, if we were to withdraw from Iraq, terrorism would suddenly proliferate and the world as we know it would come to an end. He did not argue that case very well; he simply concentrated on the politics and, of course, once again, on instilling fear in the Australian community. He sent the message that if the opposition’s view on Iraq were ever put into effect the world would somehow be a more dangerous place. It would have been fine for him to do that if he had produced the evidence, but he simply failed to prosecute that case.

The Prime Minister tried to suggest that there is some inconsistency in the Labor Party’s approach to Iraq vis-a-vis Afghanistan. That is not true. Iraq has descended into a civil war and the connection to al-Qaeda is, at best, tenuous. Of course, that situation will not be fixed using the guns and bullets of international forces but by using diplomacy and with the will and strength of the Iraqis themselves. Resolution depends on the will and strength of the religious and ethnic groups to sort themselves out, and we need to put pressure on them to do so. The best way to do that is to let them know that we will not be around forever.

Of course, Afghanistan is another situation, where you have a government fighting what is effectively an invasion by Taliban troops trained in Pakistan. It is an entirely different situation. It is a war in a country that is training members of al-Qaeda and associated groups; it is training the terrorists who are bombing Australians in places like Bali. That war can be won and must be won. That is the very simple difference between Iraq and Afghanistan, and the opposition maintains its position. (Time expired)

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