Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the second day in a row in the House of Representatives we have seen the Leader of the Opposition, once again, babble and bluster as he tries to avoid the terrible consequences of his irresponsible, pathetic and weak policy on Iraq. We see babble and bluster as Labor refuse to acknowledge the consequences of their policy which, if followed by our allies, would see Iraq descend back into the hands of Saddam Hussein; would see people who have suffered for generations, now trying to build a democracy, return to the very state they only dreamed of escaping.

The Leader of the Opposition and the member for Griffith, for two days in a row, have now refused to address the consequences of their weak and pathetic policy. Earlier last year we saw for the first time elections in Iraq. We saw people confound the sceptics and stampede to ballot boxes in numbers nobody predicted. They did so with terrorists threatening to kill and maim them, and some threats were delivered. We saw people prepared to take the risk to help build a new democracy.

I would like to remind those opposite of just some of the news footage of the time and of some of what was said by the people of Iraq as they began building their new democracy—people like the Kurdish woman who said, ‘This is the happiest day of my life,’ the man who said, ‘We just want to live like all other people, like all other human beings,’ and the other Iraqi who said, ‘Voting is a very good feeling—we want sovereignty and we want to get rid of injustice.’ What about the slogan painted on the wall in Baghdad, ‘Don’t live in fear’? What about that wonderful story that we saw on our TV screens of a 94-year-old Iraqi woman, demanding to vote, being wheeled by her family to a polling booth in a wheelbarrow?

I would like those members opposite who profess to believe in freedom to tell those people what their policy really is. Members opposite would just walk away. They would leave Iraq to descend. They would hand it over to the terrorists. We hear precious little from those opposite. They would just turn a blind eye and allow the very people who suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein to suffer in the future. What do they say to those families who had members killed by Saddam Hussein and now see that he has fallen, with just the chance of a democracy in Iraq? But those opposite will sit silently by while the Leader of the Opposition adopts Mark Latham’s policy. (Time expired)