Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the 18th century English politician, Edmund Burke, once quoted:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

What is happening in Iraq at the moment is evil without doubt. I go back to my 18 years service as a police officer with Victoria where I attended a number of homicides and very violent crimes—armed robberies, serious assaults with weapons—and I can say I never attended an incident where someone had been beheaded or had their body parts cut off. What we are seeing in Iraq and Syria is simply barbaric.

We have all read and witnessed on TV what extremists in the Islamic State terrorist organisation—I call them terrorists as that is what they are—are doing to our fellow human beings in Syria and Iraq. It is truly disturbing. News of public executions and beheadings of innocent people is now etched in many people's minds. I feel so awfully sorry for the family members of those who have been executed. In many cases, they have been forced to watch these atrocities take place. Horrors such as Australian citizens, including children—sadly, in most cases encouraged by male parents—gleefully holding severed heads are a stark reminder that Australia is not insulated from what is happening on the other side of the world.

Thousands of women have been forced into sexual slavery. More than a million Iraqis have been driven from their homes. At least 60 Australians are fighting with terrorist groups such as the Islamic State across Iraq and Syria, and they are supported by over 100 more. Many of these Australian terrorists will try to return to Australia and they will, undoubtedly, be comfortable with the killing of human beings—after all, that is why they went there in the first place. This must and will be addressed by terrorism legislation soon to enter the House.

I am extremely pleased that this parliament is showing bipartisan support to protect innocent people at risk of being exterminated by the Islamic State terrorists in northern Iraq. In their statements to the House, both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition used the word 'genocide' in relation to persecuted minority groups of Iraq. Genocide is a very strong word, but in this case I agree with their sentiment. There is no other word to describe the barbaric actions of these Islamic State terrorists.

I read yesterday that former Australian Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans said:

US President Barack Obama deserves unconditional support for his decision to use military force to protect the persecuted Yezidi minority from threatened genocide by marauding Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Iraq. The United States’ action is completely consistent with the principles of the international responsibility to protect (R2P) people at risk of mass-atrocity crimes, which was embraced unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.

I add that overnight the United Nations came out in support of the current action being taken which is also supported by the Iraqi government. Gareth Evans further states:

The US motive in mobilizing air power to protect them is unquestionably humanitarian … many thousands of men, women, and children who have sought refuge in … northern Iraq … face death not only from starvation and exposure, but also from genocidal slaughter by the rapidly advancing IS forces …

To date Australia, in conjunction with American, British and French aircraft, has participated in humanitarian airdrops to people trapped in northern Iraq. Shortly, at the request of the Obama administration and with the support of the Iraqi government, Australian, American, British, French, Canadian and Italian aircraft will airlift supplies, including military equipment, to the Kurdish regional government in Erbil in northern Iraq. We must support these people because they cannot defend themselves from what is happening over there without help.

Australia has met all the requests for humanitarian relief and logistical support. This is the right thing for us to do as a country. I again congratulate the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, who is doing a fantastic job.

The current military action that Australia is involved with in Iraq is nothing like the war in 2003. Australia is there alongside our partners to protect fellow human beings who are being subject to the most hideous and despicable onslaught by barbaric Islamic State terrorists.

Australians are a good people. Australia is a lucky country. We should not sit on our hands while this type of evil against humanity takes place anywhere in the world. I congratulate the Prime Minister on his leadership role and also thank the Leader of the Opposition for his own unequivocal support.

By way of background, I served with the Victoria Police counter-terrorism unit. I am still concerned about a number of our Commonwealth counter-terrorism laws. I have raised this directly with the Prime Minister and also with the Attorney-General. I am still greatly concerned about preventive detention laws. I know, for example, that Victoria Police will not use those laws. There is an argument that, because the laws have never been used, they are good laws. On the other hand, I know as a police officer that those laws are very impractical to use. I cannot understand why you would have a person in custody who is suspected of or involved in an imminent terrorist attack yet you cannot ask them one question. They have to be released. And then you can arrest them under part 1C of the Crimes Act once there is sufficient evidence that they are a suspect. Victorian Police, for example, will then revert back to their state law of 'reasonable time'. What greatly concerns me is that if there is an incident occurring in multiple states—Victoria and New South Wales, for example—one state might use Commonwealth investigation or interview powers while the other uses the state law of 'reasonable time'. The other law that concerns me is mandatory reporting. Again, Victoria requires the reporting of the theft or loss of only one substance, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which has always been the IRA's weapon of choice. But there are a number of other high consequence dangerous goods that need to be added. I have again highlighted this to the Prime Minister and to the Attorney-General.

The other great concern I have is that police do not have immediate access to information about who is buying explosives or high consequence dangerous goods such as ammonium nitrate fertilizer. People might have a licence, but if a police officer involved in a counter-terrorism investigation checks the person, they would not know whether that person is buying explosives or is undertaking training to be a pilot. As we saw with September 11, we need to make sure that the police members who are investigating terrorism in our country have every tool at hand to make sure they can prevent a terrorist attack. This was a matter I raised in my maiden speech back in 2004 and it still greatly concerns me today. We were able to push it through a bipartisan report in the parliament; and I thank in particular the member for Werriwa, who strongly supported this. I will be pushing this again because we need to give our investigators everything they might possibly need to identify any person or associate who may be involved in terrorist activities.

In closing, my thoughts and prayers are with all the family members of those in Iraq and Syria who have seen the most despicable acts of cruelty inflicted upon their fellow men. We need to stop this. We need to take action. I congratulate both sides of parliament.

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