Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have spoken about war and conflict before in this place, about the enormous responsibility of government in making that decision to commit our troops to war, knowing full well that our decision will almost inevitably end with the loss of life of fine young Australians. There are no easy decisions in this space. This motion is framed in pejorative terms, perhaps more concerned about making a political point, but it is an important motion in that it brings the issue of peacekeeping before this parliament.

The United Nations plays an important role in international security and there is generally a benefit for nations confronting conflict in doing so under the cloak of a UN resolution. However, it is important that Australia never relinquishes our right and obligation to make decisions in our national interest. There may well be times where we must act with our allies to protect our interests and our nation and that may include circumstances where there is not a UN resolution in place. Australian governments must not abdicate our responsibility to place Australia's interests first.

I am a great believer in the benefits of effective peacekeeping. It is important to note that Australia has a long history of involvement in peacekeeping operations. As a founding member of the United Nations, we participated in our first peacekeeping mission in Indonesia in 1947. Since then we have provided more than 65,000 personnel to some 50 United Nations peacekeeping missions and are the 12th largest donor to UN regular and peacekeeping budgets. In our region we have effectively provided peacekeeping services in Bougainville, Solomon Islands and East Timor. In Bougainville, the scene of a long and bloody insurrection, the Howard government committed Australian troops to act as part of the Truce Monitoring Group and then the Peace Monitoring Group while they negotiated a peace agreement to bring an end to the conflict.

The challenge of that decision was the fact that Australian troops would be on the ground, unarmed, before the combatants had disarmed. It was a courageous call but, armed with Australian humour and friendliness and supported by our New Zealand and Fijian colleagues, the Bougainville process was remarkably successful. As the time for a referendum on independence approaches, it is well worth acknowledging Australia's contribution and that of our Defence Force personnel and indeed David Irvine and Nick Warner, our high commissioners to Papua New Guinea at that time. Their input was critical to that success.

Similarly, Australia's intervention in Solomon Islands during the times of the so called ethnic tension was critical to bringing an end to a conflict that had the potential to expand beyond the confines of Solomon Islands and into Bougainville, potentially igniting a broad regional conflict. East Timor likewise provided a fine example of Australian involvement in peacekeeping operations in accordance with a UN resolution establishing INTERFET.

It is fair to say that Australia is a strong participant in the United Nation's peacekeeping team. From the standpoint of the United Nations, the responsibility to protect means that if a sovereign nation does not or will not protect its citizens then the international community has the responsibility to do so. This was the basis for the UN involvement in Rwanda and the Balkans. And Australia supports the United Nations in its desire to stamp out crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing through participation in and support of many 'responsibility to protect' groups.

This motion calls for a further expansion of the responsibility to protect by calling on the United Nations to identify potential trouble spots and establish a peacekeeping force there before the conflict can escalate. This is what we might call a useful pre-emptive strike. This is why I personally support the proposal by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade to create a mediation unit within DFAT to look at resolving conflicts before they escalate into war, particularly in our region. This model has been used successfully by Norway in helping to resolve or de-escalate a number of conflicts. Given the generally widely held respect for Australia in the international community, I see no reason Australia should not adopt a similar approach. The other potential role for this mediation unit could be to not only deter the escalation of conflict but also resolve the cause of the conflict, thereby minimising future disputes. I thank the member for Wills for his motion today.

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