Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the humanitarian crisis occurring in Iraq and respond to the Prime Minister and opposition leader's statement in the main chamber.

I will begin by acknowledging the sacrifices, in particular, of the journalists who have gone there to provide information to the world, yet have lost their lives in this horrible conflict—Steven Sotloff, James Foley and Bassam Raies and many others, I am sure, who could be named.

Obviously, as politicians, we work in words and beliefs but we tend to come home okay. When journalists go off to provide information to the world, they put themselves in harm's way. I acknowledge their particular sacrifice and offer my condolences to their families.

I have been contacted by many people about the unfolding situation in the Middle East. I have a significant Muslim population in my electorate, and many of them have raised concerns about the process. The other day a rally was held in Brisbane by the Kurdish community seeking further support, and they provided me with a petition. I am going to read from a few of the people who wrote to me direct from my electorate—there were many other people from outside my electorate, obviously. They said:

I urge the Australian Government to send further humanitarian aids and military assistance to Kurdistan.

I also ask the Australian Government to recognise the ISIS barbarism on the people of Kurdistan including the Yezidi, Christian and Shabak religious minorities as acts of war, crime and genocide.

I appreciate your efforts and assistance in advance.

The group also wrote to the Prime Minister, the foreign minister and Tania Plibersek, who is the shadow spokesperson in this area. I personally delivered that correspondence to the foreign minister's office. I know that she has been working hard to make sure that the concerns of the Kurdish community and other minorities that have been targeted are being listened to.

To Jwan from Sunnybank Hills, Karen from Yeronga, Mehdi from Yeronga, Shadia from Acacia Ridge, Kardo from Acacia Ridge, Sabir from Acacia Ridge, Sekala from Runcorn, Zana from Runcorn and Mohammad from Sunnybank Hills—to name a few of the people who have written to me—I have passed on your concerns.

Our newspapers and televisions screens have been filled too often with the atrocities that are taking place in Iraq—and, obviously, also in Syria, a country that surely, in terms of taking and accepting refugees, is doing more than almost any other nation at the moment in accommodating displaced people. Maybe Lebanon next door might be doing it tough as well.

This extremist armed group is committing mass atrocities against ethnic minorities in northern Iraq. We understand that and, sadly, we know that because they are adept at placing information about this on social media. As the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters confront these terrorists, civilians remain at risk of further mass atrocities and crimes.

The security situation in Iraq has dramatically deteriorated, particularly in the Nineveh province and the Kurdish semi-autonomous regions—an area that used to embrace people who were different and not necessarily Kurds. Even though the Kurds have hundreds and hundreds of years of history of being discriminated against, they have been an incredibly generous people. And certainly in my community, they have always been very engaged and supportive.

As a result of these ongoing attacks by the terrorists, these barbaric terrorists, who operate on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border, declared a caliphate spanning both countries—something that cannot be allowed to continue, because of the terror that is being reaped on civilians. They, and several associated armed groups, have engaged in widespread fighting with the Iraqi security forces, and they are causing civilian casualties and widespread civilian displacement.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq reported that more than 1,000 civilians were killed during July alone, excluding deaths in Anbar province, and that over 5,000 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year.

Labor's support for the government on the situation in Iraq is underpinned by three key principles. One, we need to respond effectively to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq to prevent genocide and to relieve suffering. Two, we need to promote a unity government in Iraq, which hopefully is only days away—a government that is inclusive and can achieve national cohesion, and something that did not flow from the disastrous war from over a decade ago. We need a government that will reject sectarianism and the alienation of minorities, enabling effective security, peace, harmony, and control over Iraqi territory. The world community must not act in a way that would leave Iraq in a worse position and in a situation where things could deteriorate. The third key principle is that we must deny the motivation and opportunity for any Australians to go and join these foreign fighters.

As the opposition leader Shorten said early in the week:

… every action is a betrayal of millions of good people of conscience who follow that faith.

That is why I am not going to use the term that is regularly used to describe these terrorists, because I do not think that those are words that should be put together. That would be betraying the tenets of their religion, because of the horrific crimes that they are committing at the moment against people. I think from my dealings, and my readings, it would be much more accurate to say that these terrorists do not represent the Islamic faith in any way. I cannot stress that enough.

As a member of the international community, Australia strives to uphold the notion of the Responsibility to Protect. I think the member for Sydney has detailed this in some speeches, and I think Gareth Evans also wrote about it recently in The Australian. The handling of this responsibility is not an easy task. We have to look at our own geography first, obviously—that is what good community members do—but, there comes a time, as we have shown over the last 100 years, when we do step up in Australia. If social media had been as prevalent back in the nineties when atrocities happened in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo, maybe we would have been even quicker to go and do our bit in terms of making sure we protected as many people as possible, when people were being attacked for their religion, culture, faith or ethnicity.

Disagreement continues today about the right level of intervention. I think we can learn from the mistakes made in this parliament in the first Iraqi war, but we need to be very careful, obviously, and make sure that we have everybody on side. If people are going to talk about 'Team Australia', they need to be clear that they are including all Australians, that we are not just being a country that answers solely to whatever the United States says. Australia was pivotal in creating the United Nations, and I think we should always take our lead from the United Nations, not from a two or three member-state initiative. We should always work with the United Nations—that is when we can do the most good for the greatest number of people.

I am glad that we are able to stand up and express our views in this democratic chamber about whether we should go and how we should go. I am particularly proud of the dedicated and professional men and women of our Australian Defence Force. I will mention the Royal Australian Air Force, because they will be doing most of the heavy lifting, both metaphorically and literally, and I know that there will be challenges for those service personnel and their families. A cousin of mine came back recently from the Middle East Area of Operations, the MEAO, and it can be challenging. I know that in the next few weeks it will be particularly so. It saddens me to say that sometimes it is necessary for the international community to take such strong steps, but aid will not do it when people are going to ignore the rules of war and international humanitarian law and execute people, both prisoners and civilians. We need to do more. We need to take stronger steps. I am very confident of the skill and bravery of our Australian defence personnel and I support their efforts in Iraq in assisting the international humanitarian effort to prevent genocide against these beleaguered minorities in northern Iraq.

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