Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the House for the chance to move this private member's motion. I move:

That this House:

(1) stresses the superiority of collective security through the United Nations over unilateral action or 'coalition of the willing' type adventurism, and strongly supports the 'responsibility to protect' principle as a vehicle to protect civilians; and

(2) urges the Government to:

(a) encourage the United Nations to establish peacekeeping forces in the world's trouble spots to protect civilians and to extinguish conflicts before they escalate in ways which potentially draw in Australia; and

(b) implement the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade regarding the establishment of a mediation unit within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to assist in resolving intrastate and interstate disputes before they develop into open conflict (similar to the Norwegian model).

I believe it is deeply appropriate that we should be having this debate on a day when the Prime Minister has made an announcement concerning Australia's national security. The Prime Minister's statement is caused by and acknowledges the threat posed by Islamic State, not just in the Middle East but right around the world, including here in Australia.

The Prime Minister's statements on national security so far have, in my view, been incomplete; what they are lacking is an apology. There has never been an apology from the Liberal Party or any sign of recognition or awareness that the response of former US President George W Bush—enthusiastically supported and unconditionally embraced by Liberal Prime Minister John Howard—to the attacks by al-Qaeda on 11 September 2001 was disastrous. The invasion of Iraq was an act of folly and self-indulgence which was a key driver of the threats to our national security that we are discussing today. Until the Liberal Party shows some sign of acknowledging and apologising for what was a monumental blunder, it cannot be regarded as a safe pair of hands when it comes to national security.

The link between the invasion of Iraq and the rise of Islamic State has been made by numerous experts. Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to the US from 1997 to 2003, has said of the reasons for the success of Islamic State in Iraq:

Perhaps the most significant is the decision taken more than ten years ago by President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to unseat Saddam Hussein without thinking through the consequences for Iraq of the dictator’s removal.

He said Islamic State is now fighting alongside former members of Saddam Hussein's army, which was disbanded in May 2003, 'throwing 400,000 angry men on to the streets with their weapons', and:

The order directly fuelled the eight-year insurgency against American and allied troops.

… former Iraqi soldiers were recruited by the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda, have been fighting in Syria and have now returned to Iraq with ISIS.

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has identified the 2003 Iraq war as one of the causes of the current situation in the Middle East. He says:

I spoke against it at the time, and I am afraid my concerns have proved well-founded.

…   …   …

The country has been in the throes of insurgency ever since and the ensuing chaos has proved an ideal breeding ground for the Sunni radical groups—

that now call themselves Islamic State. The commentator Tom Engelhardt, from Middle East Eye, identifies the US intervention in Iraq as a significant factor in the current situation. He says:

… just about everything done in the war on terror has facilitated their rise. After all, we dismantled the Iraqi army and rebuilt one that would flee at the first signs of ISIS's fighters, abandoning vast stores of Washington's weaponry to them. We essentially destroyed the Iraqi state, while fostering a Shia leader who would oppress enough Sunnis in enough ways to create a situation in which ISIS would be welcomed or tolerated throughout significant areas of the country.

As the motion makes clear, I do believe in collective international action to solve problems, and of course we have the United Nations, established precisely to solve international problems and to seek to improve on the abysmal record of the First and Second World Wars. I know it does a lot of good, but the increasing level of global violence suggests that it needs to be doing much more. Why doesn't it do more? That would be because the big powers, members of the UN Security Council with a veto power over UN action, are prepared to turn a blind eye to cover up the sins and misdeeds of their allies and supporters. No-one has clean hands here. Getting the big powers to do better globally is no easy matter. We must all be willing to put pressure on the big countries and demand action from them. It is not good enough to let them blame this or that rogue state, rogue general or rogue religious leader. We should tell the big powers that we know they can fix the problem if they genuinely want to or, if they cannot, that the world is willing to help out. Being part of the US alliance as we are does not mean that we are obliged to turn a blind eye to misconduct.

We must breathe new life into the 'responsibility to protect' civilians. This doctrine does have the potential to save civilian lives, and we should demand that the UN Security Council uses it when outbreaks of violence occur. This is far superior to coalition-of-the-willing type unilateral action and far superior to fatalism and meekly allowing this violence to continue.

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