Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Defence. Would the minister update the House on work being done by Australian troops as part of a coalition to bring security and democracy to Iraq? Minister, are there any alternative policies?

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Herbert for his question and for his great advocacy on behalf of and his pride in the Townsville based troops serving in Iraq. Recently I had the privilege of visiting Australian Defence Force personnel who are serving in Iraq. There are 1,350 from the north Arabian Gulf through Iraq in various elements of our deployment and I have never been more proud to be an Australian than to see not only what our Australian Defence Force personnel are doing but why they are doing it. You would be forgiven, as an average Australian, for thinking that things in Iraq are not going well, that progress is not being made. Every single day, we turn on a television or we open a newspaper and we see evidence of the latest act of terrorism that has been conducted by some Saddamists, by jihadists or by insurgents—basically, terrorists and criminals. As we heard yesterday from the British Prime Minister, the intention of those people is to weaken our resolve.

It is estimated that the Iraqi economy will grow this year by 16½ per cent. Also there are now 230,000 Iraqis who are trained in their own policing and security and indeed for their own army. There are 10 million Iraqis today who have access to sewerage services that were denied them under Saddam Hussein and 1.2 million who have access to clean water which they did not have before. There are 3,400 schools in Iraq today that are teaching Iraqi children because they have been refurbished over the last three years and another 700 are on the way.

A recent poll of the Iraqi people found that 64 per cent believe that their country is moving in the right direction. The Iraqi people, unlike us Australians who often take these things for granted, risked their lives on three occasions to vote. Twelve million of them voted and in doing so made a very strong commitment to the democratic principles for which Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and other coalition allies are fighting in Iraq.

I am asked about alternative polices. The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, said in this House only yesterday:

If the going is tough, we tough it out. This is not a time to walk away. This is a time for the courage to see it through.

The former chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition and commentator Mr Michael Costello put it in fairly Australian terms in the Australian on 13 January 2006 when he said:

To disengage from Iraq now would be the biggest single encouragement the terrorists could get.

If Australia or indeed any one of the coalition allies were to withdraw from Iraq now, it would give the terrorists the opportunity to claim a victory over not only Iraqi democracy but democracy throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world. It would give them the opportunity to claim victory over hopeful optimism, respect for human life and also all of the values this country has held dear in its short history.