David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to convey my outrage at the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and other places, and to express my deepest condolences to the families of all of the victims. I would also like to reflect on the overall battle with terrorism in which we are engaged. Our response to these events should be threefold: to express solidarity with the affected nations, to unambiguously express our revulsion at the evil people who have committed these deeds, and to redouble our efforts to stamp out ISIL and its sympathisers.

Evil has lurked in every era in history. The great paradox of humanity is that, while the world always improves over time, that improvement is frequently punctuated by barbaric events. This has always been true, and will continue to be true while darkness exists in humanity. In most of the world, it is much better to be alive now than it was 100 years ago or 500 years ago. Over the centuries, we have found better ways to govern ourselves, to respect one another and to resolve disputes through debate rather than war. Of course, this progress has been marked by horrendous evil events. In the past century, we experienced not only the Nazi atrocities of World War II but genocides perpetrated by governments all over the world against their own people.

In every age, civilised people have had to stand up against those who would seek to destroy us. The manner in which we stand against evil varies according to the circumstances, but stand up we have and we must. We should not forget that, until the very recent past, the threat of global nuclear war was real. We are fortunate that that threat, in recent years, has largely passed. This happened not through luck but through a mixture of successful military, diplomatic and economic policies that brought the communist world to its knees.

Today, our enemy is the evil of terrorism, practised in its most barbaric forms by ISIL. We must defeat ISIL by denying it territory, denying it funds and denying it supporters. Military action is essential to success in this battle. Controlling territory enables ISIL the physical space it requires in order to organise its activities and train terrorists. This territory must be taken away from it. Central to this is cooperation amongst all of the international powers who are acting in Iraq and Syria against this evil group. All of the international community's efforts should be pointed at ISIL in this theatre of war. Coordination, too, with local resistance must occur in order for ISIL to be eliminated. We should work closely with those on the ground who are risking their lives to defeat this evil organisation. Most of these groups are not admirable, and many of them will have been involved in activities that we find deplorable, but we must embrace a practical policy with the paramount goal of destroying ISIL. Necessarily, this will involve working with groups that we would not otherwise support.

For hundreds of years, the politics of the Middle East have been troubled, and we cannot pretend that peace and prosperity are likely to reign in that region anytime soon. All governance options in Iraq and Syria are imperfect, but we have to confront the cold, practical reality that ISIL threatens the world in ways that other actors in that region do not. ISIL must be eliminated. It may be too ambitious to expect a lasting peace in that region, but a future without ISIL is infinitely superior to one with it. In concert with its military efforts, the international community needs to engage in negotiations that lead to a post-ISIL environment in which all racial and religious parts of Syrian and Iraqi societies are represented in their government. This will take years to achieve and will be extraordinarily complex, but it must be done if that region is to live with at least some level of peace.

We must deny ISIL territory and we must deny it any part of a political solution in Iraq and Syria. We must destroy it where it is based, but we must also deny it followers—many of whom come from places far away from Iraq and Syria, including our own nation. ISIL's propaganda activities are sophisticated, and we must acknowledge that it has been successful in spreading its evil message to the world. We have to be the equal of it in countering its message online and, importantly, we have to work closely with the local Muslim community in seeking to identify potentially vulnerable targets for ISIL. It is the family and surrounding community who are best placed to identify at-risk individuals. We need to redouble our efforts to work with community groups to stop the radicalisation process before it begins.

The murderous acts of terrorism in Paris and elsewhere are abhorrent to civilised people everywhere. They are the modern manifestation of the darkest capacities of mankind. We must completely defeat those who were responsible for them by destroying them militarily and supporting a political process in Iraq and Syria that leaves no place for ISIL and its sympathisers. Throughout history, peaceful people have confronted those who prosecute evil and they have won. We must win this modern battle against terrorism, and we will.

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