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

I rise to support the motion of the Prime Minister, his speech and the support provided by the Leader of the Opposition in the main chamber.

It is very easy at this point in time in our history to wonder whether the world has ever been less stable. There is some weight in that question, with conflicts now raging in the Middle East, including in Iraq and Syria; a number of conflicts on the African continent; and what is developing as a state-on-state conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. And, of course, closer to home there are very significant strategic tensions in our own region.

But when we reflect on the 19th and 20th centuries we see a much more grave picture, with up to 40,000,000 lives lost during the 20th century—mainly in the first and second world wars but also in conflicts like in Korea. If you go back to the 19th century the list is very long—various revolutions and wars of independence: the Franco-Prussian War, the War of 1812, the Anglo-Afghan wars, the Anglo-Zulu War, the Sino-Japanese wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the Boer War and the Crimean War. The list is very long.

Thankfully, things have changed as we have made our way into the 21st century. I do not know that human nature has changed much, but certainly I think that we have matured as human beings. And we do have far more developed international and rules-based systems which help and guide us through periods of strategic tension and difficulty and, indeed, the outbreak of conflict. That is not to say that we can rest on our laurels. We have to be forever vigilant to ensure that we secure what I think the whole global community wants, and that is a peaceful world in which we can all live in peace.

So these are serious times, and Australia has to be very cautious about the role it plays as not only a middle power but a middle power which has quite successfully in recent years enhanced its role as an international player in the global community. We should tread very cautiously as we deal with each of these questions which are before us.

I think it is fair to say that there are number of questions we need to ask ourselves before committing ourselves to military operations: first of all, whether the action is supported broadly in the international community and, of course, whether the action is authorised by the host country, the country involved; whether that military intervention is likely to do more harm than good, of course; whether there is a responsibility to protect—that is, protection from things like ethnic cleansing and genocide; and whether it is likely that the failure to act will lead to a proliferation or spread of fundamentalism and acts of terror, including on our own shore. I think that in the case of northern Iraq, all those boxes are ticked and it is absolutely correct that Australia should be playing a part in an international coalition of forces to do all we can to secure our longer-term peace in that part of the world. Syria is a far more complex picture. Again, Australia will need to be very cautious about how it responds responsibly to questions which will inevitably emerge out of Syria.

Australia will have to be very careful about concurrency issues here. We remain involved in military operations in a number of parts of the world, including, still, Afghanistan; now northern Iraq; and potentially, if you can believe what the media is reporting today, Ukraine. Australia has a somewhat limited capacity. We are very fortunate to have one of the best defence forces in the world and I pay tribute to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force who, in any way, are already playing a role in some of these points of tension around the world or who will play a role at some point in the coming weeks and months.

But it is difficult for a small force like Australia to be participating in more than one operation, let alone three or potentially four operations. We do need to be cautious and we do need, collectively in this place, to commit ourselves to spending at least two per cent of GDP on our defence forces—at least two per cent of GDP—and do it more quickly than the current government currently plans to do. That is not a criticism in any sense; it is just a show of support from me, and I hope many in the Labor Party, that that aspiration is a very important one and one which we need to meet as quickly as possible.

I just want to say something else about Ukraine. Ukraine, on any measure, is emerging as a state-on-state conflict. And state-on-state conflicts are somewhat different from the humanitarian responses we are seeing typically now in Iraq. They are not counterinsurgencies per se, but a very different beast. Many Australians, quite rightly, ask questions about the merit of our participation in Afghanistan. I, as the minister at one point and, of course, in every position I have held in this place, have argued those merits. I think there were very solid reasons for us to be in Afghanistan, and I absolutely believe that we did the right thing to be participating in Afghanistan.

You can imagine the weight of the questions coming from people if we were to involve ourselves in what is effectively a state-on-state conflict so far from our shores and so far from our immediate sphere of influence, and you can imagine how weighty those questions would become if we were to lose more lives in Ukraine, which of course we have already so tragically done.

I want to say something about parliamentary authorisation of military operations. I reject it. We are a strong and robust democracy and we have strong conventions which remain unchallenged in this place with respect to these issues. The people who sit on our National Security Committee of Cabinet are duly elected people of the Commonwealth of Australia, in that sense expressing, hopefully, the will of the Australian people. They are people who have access to intelligence and other information, which of course is critical to making these very tough decisions—information which could not possibly be made available to members of the broader parliament, including the House of Representatives and the Senate.

I recall being at a meeting of NATO ministers in Scotland in very late 2007. These were ministers from so-called Regional Command South who used to meet as a bit of a caucus. I had the then Dutch defence minister ask me to face his cameras, which were parked outside the NATO headquarters, so that I could make an appeal to his parliament to reauthorise Dutch operations in Uruzgan Province, where of course we were a critical partner. I do not think that is a good process. I think we have to have trust and faith in our leadership to make the right decisions. Generally speaking, when the decisions are made correctly, they will typically have the broad support of the parliament, as I know this Prime Minister has with respect to Iraq.

We are not a member of NATO, nor should we be a member of NATO. We are happy to be a NATO partner, as we were in Afghanistan, where the merits present themselves. We need to be always demanding that when we are participating we are part of the strategic planning process, with access to all of the relevant information, but we need to be very cautious about how much we become engaged with NATO and their spheres of responsibility because here, close to home, we need to ensure that we do not take our eye off the very real strategic tensions in our own region.

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