Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of this motion on the protection of civilians, and I congratulate the member for Wills for raising this important topic. At a time when Australia's international aid budget continues to be the plaything of the current government, the member for Willis' reminder of the importance of international cooperation for peace and stability is refreshing. Our world is changing, and so too must our responses to the challenges we face. Our world is more interconnected, borders are more porous, international travel is cheaper and the threats we face transcend any single nation's control.

Our engagement with the United Nations is indicative of a world view that favours multilateral action and consensus building for collective security. It is clear that the pressures we face are international in nature. The spectre of climate change remains ever present. The danger posed by international extremist groups is ever growing. Interstate and intrastate conflicts threaten to undermine the stability of entire regions, including aspects of our own. These problems cannot be solved by any one nation acting unilaterally; they require collective solutions. The United Nations provides us with the platform for collective action that these complex issues require. This is particularly the case for international interventions and peacekeeping missions, which this motion speaks to.

The United Nations has deployed peacekeeping missions in hotspots throughout the world for many, many years, and areas such as Syria and Kosovo have benefited significantly. Through the involvement of the UN, many conflicts have been resolved and humanitarian crises averted, saving many lives in the process. Conflicts within countries and civil unrest within nations have also been mediated through engagement with the UN. In this respect, the Responsibility to Protect—an evolving and emerging norm of international law—states that a nation's sovereignty is predicated on its ability to protect its citizens from atrocities and genocide. The Responsibility to Protect principle, shaped and championed by former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Gareth Evans, was designed to promote collective action to prevent or punish genocide.

Australia has used its two-year term as one of the non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to promote this principle to the great benefit of both the international community and Australia's international interests. Despite this, the now Prime Minister, while in opposition, criticised Labor's campaign to win the seat on the Security Council. In 2012, the current Prime Minister attacked the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard for her efforts, saying:

Our prime minister should not be swanning around in New York talking to Africans …

He even referred to a non-permanent seat that Australia was vying for as the 'bronze medal' of the United Nations. Yet Australia has been able to use its standing in the UN to create a better and safer world. One of the ways that we have used our position on the Security Council is by using the Responsibility to Protect, championed, as I said, by former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, as the principle to guide international action in Syria. Australia helped lead the way in getting the Security Council to intervene there and so enable humanitarian assistance to be delivered, even when nation states did not want their borders crossed. Australia led the charge in putting pressure on Russia in the aftermath of the downing of Malaysian flight MH17, which other members have also alluded to in this debate. Australia has also put North Korean's humanitarian crisis firmly on the agenda as a permanent part of future Security Council discussions. These are real achievements that are built upon a sense of collective security and collective action. This is what it means to pursue change in the 21st century in the international fora.

In a similar respect, Australia's defence policy should not simply be about unilateral defence; it should also be about engagement with our international partners. This motion calls for the implementation of 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. Australia can assist by providing resources and knowledge, as well as by engaging in conflicts as both a mediator and a legitimate third party. We have shown this before in our own region with the work of former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans. He worked to establish a durable solution to the conflict within the state of Cambodia. It is a very good example of the role that Australia can play in this respect. Australia could be of particular importance in the Southeast Asia and Pacific regions by playing an international mediation and peacekeeping role. Unfortunately, mediation has been poorly resourced in this region in the past and, as this motion alludes to, we could do much more in this space.

One of the necessary preconditions to effective development is peaceful resolution of conflict. We talk a lot about the objectives of our international aid program; but, without collective security and stability within these nations, economic development—something that we can all agree on is a worthy end in itself—is a long way off. In that respect, I commend the motion moved by the member for Wills to the House and recommend it to the government.

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