Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Wills for bringing this motion forward. It raises some significant issues about the nature of the operation of the United Nations and the whole question about how nations can work together to try to create peace, often in parts of the world where peace is about the last thing on their minds. History, cultures and clashes which are very varied and very complex in their nature create circumstances which cause real problems for the international community in how to respond.

Some of the things that have been mentioned already, and my figures may be slightly at odds with some that have been mentioned, highlight the size of the problem. According to information from September of last year with regard to the United Nations, there were 16 current peacekeeping operations, 13 political missions, over 104,000 uniformed personnel from 128 member states—including just under 90,000 troops, 12½ thousand police and in excess of 1,700 military observers—and just under 19,000 civilian personnel.

The total number of personnel across those 16 peacekeeping missions was at that stage just short of 123,000 and climbing. If you go back over the last few years, in 2009 there were 121,700, in 2012 there were 120,900, in 2011 there were 121,600 and in 2012 there were 114,800. There was a decrease around that time that related to some improvements in circumstances in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon and Timor. Resources per annum are about US$8 billion, as I understand it.

What this highlights, I think, is that the size and the volume of the problems being faced is huge. There is a need for complex relationships and partnerships across a range of different organisations, whether it be the World Health Organization, the UNHCR, UNICEF and member state groups that relate to particular regions. It is a complex operation.

The other thing is that, when we talk about peacekeeping, what do we really mean? It is actually pretty simplistic to look at it in just those terms. There is the issue of conflict prevention, peacemaking and then, on from that, peace enforcement and peacekeeping, which overlap. Add to that the whole issue of post-conflict peace building. What this says is that you really have to have a multipurpose approach across a range of disciplines to ensure that you give some of these communities a chance to get beyond the violence and into the situation where they can get peace, which gives the community the opportunity to grow into the future.

UN peacekeeping is now bigger than ever before and growing. It is more diverse and it is more active. It requires, as I said, engagement with many more actors, and the fact is peacekeeping operations alone are not sufficient to deal with the issues we are talking about. There are a range of challenges which go into the future as well. Firstly, there is a question about the potential for operational overstretch and the risk of mission failure and capability mismatch. That goes to making sure you are meeting the needs of the conflict you are facing.

Others have spoken a bit about the UN and the circumstances they face. The UN in my view is an organisation that tries to do a range of tasks and does some of them well, most of them badly—but, frankly, no-one else does them. That is the point that people who criticise the UN have to remember: no-one else does some of the things that the UN does in the places the UN does it. We expect them to be the answer, often in a situation where we do not even know what the question is.

When we look back over the history of some of the engagements that have occurred—and I will use Afghanistan and Iraq as an example—I think there is no doubt that there was at times a complete misunderstanding of the nature of what needed to be achieved, of what the circumstances were. That led to circumstances such as going in in a manner which, in my view, probably on certain occasions was not the best way to go and leaving conflict zones at times when in fact there was a need to stay. I think that can be pointed out particularly in the first departure from Afghanistan and, arguably, around the question of Iraq.

They are complex problems, and that is why it is important to look at the recommendations from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on establishing a unit which would, from our perspective, allow the development of a more complex understanding of the issues faced. It is about coordinating our aid, about coordinating our responses and about providing the best opportunities to ensure our aid and our activity actually gets a result.

See this speech in context