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

Chuck Berry toured Australia in January and February in 1959 for the first time. He came back here four times—November 1973, September 1976, 1978 and September 1989. I was fortunate enough to attend one of his Australian concerts. The tour of that great American rock 'n' roll icon shows the deep cultural affinity Australians have with the United States. I recently saw mad Mel Gibson's great film Hacksaw Ridge. All of the actors were, practically, Australian. The great Richard Roxburgh, my personal favourite Hugo Weaving—all of them. It is very interesting that an iconic film about that great US medic and conscientious objector Desmond Doss, who saved 100 people on Okinawa, could be made almost exclusively with Australian actors.

That is the context in which this motion by the member for Canning, whom I praise for bringing this motion to the House, should be seen.

As the member for Gellibrand said, John Curtin made a famous declaration in 1941 that symbolically shifted that relationship of Australia towards the United States. Not only did Curtin insist that divisions be brought back home for the defence of Australia, including the 6th and 7th; he also made a little-known agreement with the President of the United States and Mr Churchill for the US 42nd Infantry Division to come to Australia for its defence, and for us to leave the 9th Division in the Middle East for its crucial role in the Battle of El Alamein. From the point of view of the victory of the Allies in the Second World War, that was a very wise agreement and again underlies the context in which the cooperation between Australia and the United States goes back. As one of the contributors said, it goes all the way back to the days of Monash, where the first 10 US companies involved in the First World War fought under Australian leadership at the Battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918. We have been with the Americans in every conflict since the First World War: the Second World War, obviously, Vietnam and many other places. Who can forget, for instance, Steven Spielberg's haunting film series The Pacific, where it was underlined that the 1st Marine Division came back from Guadalcanal, where they were nearly destroyed, and spent nine months in my city of Melbourne—nine months!—until they went back into service?

Regarding Australia's cooperation with the United States in intelligence, we have Pine Gap in the central part of Australia, the largest NSA/CIA base outside the United States, and it contributes to the peace of the world through its monitoring of missile launches in Russia, China and now, more pressingly, in North Korea. This has also led recently to the pivot—a bit disappointing—under President Obama, where only 1,250 US servicemen are here, but we have had, as someone pointed out, the squadron of Raptors arrive in Base Tindal for cooperation, and we have 30,000 troops serving together and getting experience in our regular biennial Exercise Talisman Saber.

The cooperation between Australia and the United States is seen at a technical level, at a military level and at an intelligence level, but it is underlined by our common democratic values and our huge business interests. Australia has $594 billion of investment in the United States. Iconic Australian companies like Visy and Westfield have their biggest representation there. We have enormous American investments in Australia that far outweigh any other investments by any other country. But I want to come back to this point: this entire cooperation is underlined, as pointed out in the motion of the member for Canning, by our common democratic values, our common systems, our common view of the world and the fact that we have a free press and freedom of assembly. The difference that the countries of the Five Eyes have compared to the rest of the world is something worth clinging to, and certainly being nonpartisan. I know that the member for Kooyong described the President of the United States as a dropkick. I do not think these kinds of things should be partisan. We should keep good relations with the United States, above all because of our common democratic values.

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