Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canning for bringing forward this motion on the relationship between Australia and the United States, no doubt shaped by our mutual experience of the alliance, and it is my privilege to work with the member on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, where we continue to focus on strengthening that alliance and relationship. It is a very special relationship that obviously spans culture and economy, but I want to talk particularly about the security sphere. Many people are not aware that we actually started serving with US forces—the US Marines, in that case—in the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1901, which was the last occasion that contingents from Australia fought in conflict before becoming part of the federated national army. It was a great surprise and privilege for me to see those photos on the wall of the Marine museum at the training depot in San Diego.

The relationship carried forward into the First World War. Every generation of my family has served in the military, and one of my family members served literally shoulder to shoulder with doughboys in the First World War at the Battle of St Quentin Canal in October of 1918, when the American II Corps, featuring the US 27th and 30th divisions, supported by the American 301st Heavy Tank Battalion, were engaged in a leapfrogging assault, during the course of which all the troops became very closely intermingled as some order broke down in that offensive, so our soldiers were fighting literally shoulder to shoulder with Americans in that battle. It carried forward right through the rest of the 20th century and into this century. My grandfather was a sergeant in the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion in the Second World War and, after fighting in the Middle East, landed on Java with his unit. All of those troops there were abandoned and formed what became known as 'Black Force' out of the legacy units that were left behind, and included in those units was the 2nd Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery Regiment of the Texas National Guard. Those troops fought on to the bitter end, starving, out of ammunition, out of supplies, until finally they had to surrender to the Japanese in March 1942. All of those soldiers ended up on the Burma-Thai railway together, surviving indescribable atrocities and forming an even closer bond.

We have heard mention of Prime Minister Curtin's change of policy in ensuring that that relationship became an enduring one throughout the rest of our mutual histories. My own service has been greatly enhanced by being able to serve alongside US colleagues, particularly with the US Marines in Somalia, in Bosnia, in Timor-Leste, and I served embedded with the US forces in Iraq for over a year from 2003 to 2004, and since then have worked closely with our American friends in my roles in parliament on Afghanistan transition and in procurement issues. Those American friends and I, with a lot of other colleagues, together worked through developing concepts to deal with the changing face of conflict and the so-called 'three block war', which has become very regularly employed in most of the counterinsurgency and stabilisation operations that we have experienced since the end of the Korean War, in effect. But that also led to the situation in the Iraq war where many failings of political and strategic leadership were revealed. It points to the fact that our relationship is one where we do have a responsibility to be good allies and to point out where those failings occur.

Of course, there were a lot of salutary lessons out of Iraq, which I am hoping the new US administration will take on board. I was deeply involved in exposure to a lot of intelligence activities in Iraq that suffered greatly from very irresponsible signals sent by the former secretary Rumsfeld in relation to interrogation in particular. People might remember my close involvement in the Abu Ghraib matter. It is very important that we send the right signals to our people in the field. There are no gloves-off, winks, nods or other issues that could lead to very sad consequences. I would also urge our colleagues in the US to really be careful with and to struggle against any attempts to loosen the targeting regime, which in these types of environments could actually strategically threaten our position.

I am greatly heartened about the appointment of General Mattis, who has served within Iraq—he was the commander of the 1st Marine Division, referred to by the member for Melbourne Ports, which has as its shoulder flash the Southern Cross, and its unit anthem is Waltzing Matilda—General McMaster, who is also a great thinker, and General Kellogg, who was my chief of operations at the CPA. I am encouraged by that. It does hopefully point in the right direction for this relationship.

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