Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure this morning to stand in our great Parliament House and speak on the motion moved by the member for Canning on the relationship between Australia and the USA. It recognises the strong historic relationships that exist between our two countries, especially the ANZUS treaty, and also our long commitment to freedom, democracy and liberty between our two nations.

We start back, during the First World War, at the Battle of Hamel when Australian General John Monash was given the responsibility to be in charge of American troops—one of the few times in history that a foreign general has been in charge of American armed forces. That honour was given to Sir John Monash, and when he had that responsibility he did so magnificently. It was a most successful campaign—a successful defeat of the German enemy in World War I. Then, our relationship strengthened at the Battle of the Coral Sea, when an Australian Navy admiral was placed in charge of American vessels. Again, Australians and Americans fought side-by-side in the Coral Sea. Even though on paper it was not a historic victory, it went on to be one of the great turning points of the war that guaranteed freedom for our nation.

In Korea and Vietnam, we still stood side-by-side with our American friends. Vietnam, often an unpopular war, gave the fledgling democracies of the ASEAN nations a chance to establish themselves. Often the Vietnam War is criticised, but if we look at the words of Singaporean President Lee Kuan Yew—he said that that time was so important as it put a halt on the march of communism and gave nations like Singapore the opportunity to develop and progress into the successful democracies that they are.

We see today the Americans, under their new president, having enormous economic success. In fact, only last week, US consumer sentiment unexpectedly surged to a 13-year high, and I note that America's perception of the economy and their own finances have rebounded following several major hurricanes. The jump in sentiment, greater than any analyst had predicted, was the result of falling gasoline prices, repeated record highs for the stock market, a 16-year low in unemployment and post-storm recovery efforts driving a rebound in economic growth. There are a few points on which we have differed with our American friends. One of those is in competition law. America, the home of free market capitalism, has divestiture powers in their competition laws or antitrust laws. They also have divestiture powers which we do not have here in Australia. America also has an act called the Robinson-Patman Act, which is a prohibition on anticompetitive price discrimination. Our competition laws have no such equivalent provision.

Although we share many great successes with the US over the last century, today we share many challenges. We see the same threats to our democracy, to freedom and to liberty that come about with our cultures being under attack. We see groups, both in Australia and in America, smearing our founders, belittling our nation's accomplishments, pillorying it for failing to live up to the ideas that we hold. We see in both nations those that mock our most sacred traditions and those that deride our heroes. We need America to be strong. What makes America strong also makes the nation of Australia strong. America is truly our greatest friend. It has been for the last century. I hope, through the work of this parliament, that it can be for the next century. I thank the House.

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