Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to be speaking on this issue today. It is a very important issue before the parliament, as the previous speaker said.

Obviously, our thoughts go out to those RAAF personnel and other ADF personnel, who are involved in the mission in Iraq at this time. We think of them and we think of their families, as we do think of all those people who are caught up in what is a very serious set of events in Iraq.

Labor's approach to this issue is framed by three things. First of all, it is framed by a conscious attempt to fulfil a humanitarian goal in protecting innocent people—refugees and others—who are fleeing violence and murder and people who would do them harm. We have a responsibility to protect those people; the world has a responsibility to protect those people. Secondly, we want to encourage the Iraqi government to reach out to all those disaffected communities in Iraq and come to some sensible set of governance arrangements which will see Iraq become peaceful and stable. That is critical. Thirdly, we want to remove the motivations for people, whether through malice or an intent to murder or through folly, to go and fight in this part of the world for ISIS.

Of course, the history of Iraq hangs heavily over this debate—not just the events of 2003, but events before that. Iraq obviously had a history of colonialism. It is quite an interesting history, if you read something about it, and that should not be lost in the debate. It does hang over the events there. Similarly, we are reminded of what James A. Baker warned George Bush Sr of after Gulf War I—that if there was foreign intervention in Iraq, the sectarian and tribal tensions would be potentially released and create the very situation that we see today.

Sadly, that very sensible advice to George Bush Sr was ignored in 2003. I think the great issue there was not that there was just not enough debate about whether to go to war but there was no debate about what would happen after the war, and particularly not enough attention was taken to how that community, which was wracked by dictatorship and wracked by war—would respond to the situation post-war. That was a very fatal flaw in the planning—both military and civilian—post-Gulf War II.

We now find Iraq dealing with vicious sectarianism, with the aftermath of dictatorship and war. As I said before, governance is a very serious issue in resolving those tensions. I think the Kurds, who are obviously now the beneficiaries of Australian military and civilian aid, may well be a model for governance and federalism. The dispersal of power to regions may also be a model that Iraq and its governance may wish to strongly consider when they come to resolving some of the issues around the conflicts in that country.

I think that the centralisation of power in Iraq, the idea that various communities—religious, tribal and otherwise—can be forced to share in a very strong central government is a notion that perhaps is flawed and it should be given some consideration by Iraqis themselves. Obviously it is up to them how they govern themselves, but it would seem to me that there are some drivers within these conflicts that are based around that.

Of course, it goes without saying that Islamic State or ISIL—however they want a frame themselves—is a murderous and tyrannical organisation which prays on the people of Iraq and prays on people, whatever their religion, whatever their tribe and whatever their sect. If you oppose them they will deal with you in the most murderous and intolerant fashion.

And so, when we come to analyse the responsibilities we have and the responsibilities the world has, of course, the principles of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine—that of having a just cause; having correct intentions; taking action as the final resort; seeking legitimate authority, in this case from the Iraqi government; having a proportional response; and having a reasonable prospect of success at protecting life and protecting those under threat—are all important principles which we would apply. The previous speaker talked about Gareth Evans, a former foreign minister of this country, whose very good article in TheAustralian yesterday has been a guide to how we should judge these actions and of course, we do take those principles very, very seriously. The 'responsibility to protect' doctrine makes this a fundamentally different situation to that which occurred in 2003 and the aftermath.

We also need greater regional engagement, and we should be aware that there are some nine million refugees as a result of the conflict in Syria and they are pouring into places like Lebanon and Jordan. There is a very serious situation there and we should give very serious consideration to how we deal with that. We know that these mass movements of refugees caused a huge problem for Afghanistan and Pakistan post the Soviet invasion and were the cause of some instability in that region a generation on. We need to give consideration to how we assist those people and how they are dealt with in terms of the peace and stability of the region.

As I said before, ISIL are criminals and heretics. They are not freedom fighters. They are not representatives of the Sunni tribes. They are heretics. They are not representative of an Islamic state or of Islam itself. British imams and scholars issued a fatwa condemning them as tyrannical and extremist, but most importantly as a heresy to Islam.

An honourable member: And Indonesia.

And Indonesia too. And this is not the first time that this has been done. In 2005, the King of Jordan, King Abdullah, got the biggest gathering of Islamic scholars together to issue similar fatwas against extremism. We should acknowledge that fact because it helps to isolate this particular group as a bunch of criminals and heretics, rather than the way they wish to present themselves in social media and other propaganda.

We want to take away, as I said before, the motivation for foreign fighters. Obviously, there are people there who are bent on murder and malice; but I can imagine that there are an awful lot of people who think they are going there for that and end up in very dangerous situations themselves, as part of the folly of youth. Of course, people can get enthusiastic and get caught up in situations, perhaps intentionally in the beginning, but we need to be cognisant of the nature of propaganda, that people can get swept up in it and that that can be harmful to themselves and others.

We need to have measured conduct in this area, but we support the government's actions in this regard. There is, I think, a unanimity in this parliament and I want to congratulate the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for their support. And I think the Prime Minister deserves credit for his actions in this area, and the foreign minister as well. It is sensible for Australia to be unified in its actions; to unify our own community and to engage in the world in a productive way, in a way that is responsible and in a way that, most of all, protects the slaughter of innocents.

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