Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Russia has invaded Syria. It has installed total air defence over that country with sophisticated SAM 22s covering Syria's entire airspace. Daesh, IS—the alleged aim of this invasion—does not even have a crop duster. This makes even more farcical our foreign minister's initial enthusiasm for Russia's involvement. I have a quote from her which I can barely believe. She said:

Russia's involvement [in negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program] has been ... very positive by all of those negotiating that agreement.

If we use that as an example of Russia's preparedness to be part of a solution rather than part of the problem, then we can have some optimism that Russia's involvement—

in Syria—

is positive.

As you would expect, I do not share that optimism about Russia's involvement in Syria.

The foreign minister's announcement of support for the dictator Assad, who has murdered 200,000 of his own people, as the only alternative to Daesh taking over Syria, is both untrue and unethical. The massive Russian intervention on the side of Iran and Hezbollah cements in place Iran's Shiite crescent from Lebanon, through Syria and Iraq, to Iran. Worse, the Iranian controlled Iraqi government, where Australia has 750 of its finest soldiers trying to retrain the Iraqi army, has announced its gratitude by openly joining a pact with Iran, Syria and Lebanon under Russia's auspices. The Iraqi Prime Minister insists that the intelligence-sharing arrangement will operate from Baghdad and will only be aimed at Daesh. What gratitude for the billions spent by the United States and its allies, including the current presence of Australian soldiers.

That is why I will move a resolution next week in parliament for Australian soldiers to be withdrawn from the Hajji military camp, where we are at least implicitly co-operating with the Iranians. Everyone in the Middle East, apart from our foreign minister, seems to know that the Assad war in Syria is being run by Iran's Viceroy, General Soleimani, now in conjunction with the Russians.

There are 25,000 unarmed and untrained Kurdish fighters just north of Raqqa, the centre of all evil, and they could be there in two weeks if they were trained and armed properly. From a direct Australian national security point of view, this would be much more useful than going on with dilettante air attacks on this evil hoard present in Raqqa. It would prevent attacks like the ones in Parramatta or Dandenong by deranged Jihadist teenagers who are getting their orders from Raqqa, from Daesh, from the rapists and murderers like al-Cambodi, Neil Prakash. I am not advocating that our 750 charge into the valley of death in Raqqa, but that we do something with the people, the Kurds, who hate and want to destroy our mutual enemy, the evil of Daesh.

I come back to the strategic shift, the Russian invasion of Syria and what it portends. It portends another victory for Iran after duping and cajoling the United States into a nuclear deal which will, in the medium term, refinance, rearm and renew Iran's bid for the atom bomb. Only today, Iran, emboldened by that appeasement agreement—made not in Munich but in Vienna—tested new long-range ballistic missiles against all notions of the United Nations and all agreements, including the Vienna agreement. Our foreign minister should be reminded that, in Australia, the Iranian mercenaries, Hezbollah, are classified by this parliament as a terrorist organisation. Our foreign minister thinks that the nuclear treaty with Iran is good, that Assad should be kept in office and that Russia is fighting Daesh. I beg to differ. The invasion of Syria by Russia was contemplated because the Assad regime was on the ropes. They had even run out of Hezbollah fighters, thousands of them having been killed. Now, with close Russian air support, Russian volunteer troops, plus Iranians troops, they have been attacking day after day the Daesh rebels in the north of Syria. We can fight Daesh in eastern Syria and continue to have nothing to do with the Assad-Russian-Hezbollah 'ghastly gang', as the great Churchill described people similar to Putin and those of Hezbollah and Iran.

See this speech in context