Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That this House:

(1)

censures the Prime Minister for:

(a)

his statement that Al-Qaeda is praying for a Democrat party candidate to win the next United States Presidential election;

(b)

his false statement today in Parliament that his statement yesterday was restricted to one US Senator and not the Democratic Party as a whole;

(c)

the damage this partisan comment has done to the United States—Australia alliance, and to Australian relations with both Democrat and Republican members of the US Congress;

(d)

the gross insensitivity of lecturing United States Presidential candidates on Iraq, when the war in Iraq is responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 US servicemen and women, the wounding of another 20,000, and expenditures exceeding $360 billion; and

(2)

demands that he immediately and unreservedly withdraw and apologise for those comments.

How can the man who is Prime Minister of this country come into this parliament and say that he is a person of experience on the question of national security when within the last 24 hours he has made the statement that, when it comes to the operation of al-Qaeda and its dealings in the world of international affairs today, somehow al-Qaeda is a terrorist organisation that would prefer to see a Democrat win the next presidential election rather than any other representative of another political party?

The Prime Minister today has inserted that in fact he was only making a reference to Mr Obama, one of the US Democratic Party presidential candidates. It is important that we place this unequivocally on the record. Yesterday the Prime Minister gave this answer to a question in relation to the Obama plan:

Yes, I think he’s wrong, I mean, he’s a long way from being President of the United States. I think he’s wrong. I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for Obama victory. If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

That is not an addition invented by the Australian Labor Party. That is not an addition invented by anybody else. That was spoken, or would we dare say misspoken, yesterday by the Prime Minister of Australia on a matter of great consequence—that is, the future of this country’s relationship with the United States, particularly on the question of the future direction of Iraq policy.

To accuse the Democratic Party of the United States of being al-Qaeda’s party of choice, to accuse the Democratic Party of being the terrorists’ party of choice, to accuse the party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson of being the terrorists’ party of choice is a most serious charge. I cannot understand how any responsible leader of this country can say to the nation that it is his serious view that the Democratic Party of the United States is the terrorists’ party of choice. But these are your words, Prime Minister. I did not invent them; they are yours. In this parliament today we gave you every opportunity to say that you got it wrong.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The leader will refer his remarks through the chair.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We gave the Prime Minister every opportunity to say that it was wrong. It may have been that he got caught up in the flurry of the interview. It may have been that he did not hear it clearly. It may have been that he did not understand it clearly. I understand that these things can happen, but the Prime Minister was given not once, not twice but on three separate occasions in this place today an opportunity to say, ‘I got that wrong; I didn’t mean that.’ For him to pass up each of those opportunities says much about the partisan way this Prime Minister now views the relationship with our great American ally.

Let us be absolutely clear about what is at stake here. This is not just an attack on a single US senator but an attack upon an entire political party. Here is where Australia’s national interest kicks in: the Democratic Party currently controls the majority in the United States House, controls the majority in the United States Senate and, within a year or so, may control the White House itself. In this parliament today, this country’s Prime Minister has reaffirmed that he describes this party as the terrorists’ party of choice. This is a serious matter.

Prime Minister, can you imagine if I stood up in this parliament as the alternative Prime Minister and said to the people of Australia that the terrorists would be advantaged if the Republicans were to return to the White House at the next presidential election? Ponder for a moment how that would be regarded. How would it be seized on by those opposite? Can you imagine the reaction from those opposite if I stood at this dispatch box or appeared on national television and said that the Republicans, if they won, would cause an eruption of joy on the part of al-Qaeda and on the part of terrorists?

This is a grave mistake and I fear that it reflects a deep view on the part of the Prime Minister about those within the US political system with whom he may not share a view. Prime Minister, you have said much in recent times about your experience for this job. Would an experienced Prime Minister have said something like this? Would an experienced Prime Minister have said something as irresponsible as this? Would an experienced Prime Minister have said something as reckless as this? I would say, Prime Minister, that these remarks reflect that, on these questions, you are prepared to allow partisan considerations to enter into the debate about this country’s long-term national security interests. It goes to the core question of what an experienced person should and should not do if charged with the high office of Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia.

This is not an idle debating point; this is now a matter for active debate right around the world. On CNN and in the US domestic body politic, Democratic congressmen and Republican congressmen are making public remarks and reacting against this Prime Minister’s statement. It is not a mild, indirect, academic debating point whether this is of consequence. To stand in this parliament and say that the alternative presidential party of the United States of America is somehow within the thrall of terrorists is where this argument ultimately goes. Prime Minister, this, like your remarks last week, was a grave error of judgement.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The leader will direct his remarks through the chair.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This was a grave error of prime ministerial judgement when we expect something more of our Prime Minister.

Let us go also to the question of truth. In this parliament we have become used to a Prime Minister who, when he says, ‘Black is white and white is black; I didn’t say that but in fact I said this,’ assumes it is all better by virtue of his declaration. On two occasions in the parliament today he said that he did not intend any generic critique of the Democratic Party; he said on two occasions that he was referring only to an individual. He then said it was only a reference to Senator Obama and not a generic reference to the Democratic Party. There is no way you can read this more clearly than as it is rendered in the media at present:

If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

Prime Minister, you are found out in this debate for not telling the truth. I would say that, given the nature of this censure, it goes not just to your competence in dealing with the United States on these matters and the prospective alternative administration of the United States; it also goes to a core question of truth. You cannot simply stand there and after a decade or more in office—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The leader will direct his remarks through the chair.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister has become used to standing at the dispatch box and declaring that X is Y and Y is X when we all know that is not the truth. You are caught out, Prime Minister, by the text of what you said yesterday, however you and the spin doctors may choose to represent it or misrepresent it in the general political debate of this country.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What would be the consequences of your policy, though?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Flinders is warned!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My charge around the censure motion is along these lines: it has been not an act of experience—an act of competent foreign policy—but a reckless act to make such an extraordinary statement about the alternative administration of the United States. Secondly, I charge that this Prime Minister has misled the parliament today in trying to pretend that his statement yesterday had nothing to do with a generic attack on the United States Democratic Party.

But there is another matter as well, and it goes to the consistency of this Prime Minister’s parliamentary record. On an earlier occasion this Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box and, in response to a question from his own side, provided the Labor Party and the nation with a lecture about how people should behave. The lecture was along these lines:

Let me say at the outset that criticism of American policy and criticism of the policies of an American President are of course perfectly legitimate for any political leader in Australia, but it is not in our national interest to make that kind of damning, personal, generic statement of criticism of the current President of the United States.

Why not of an alternative President of the United States? He goes on to say that these attitudes were:

... driven more by tribal political considerations than ... by anything else ...

He goes on further to say:

The reality is that the Leader of the Opposition—

at the time—

has allowed his tribal dislike, because of the politics of the current American President, to overwhelm his concern for the national interest. Irrespective of who the president may be, it is never in the interests of this country to have that kind of generic criticism made.

I repeat—out of the Prime Minister’s mouth—this statement:

... it is never in the interests of this country to have that kind of generic criticism made.

Well, Prime Minister, when you say—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. I have repeatedly reminded the Leader of the Opposition that the standing orders are quite clear that he must direct his remarks through the chair.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the Prime Minister repeatedly says—and he said it in his statement yesterday, which he has reaffirmed on a number of occasions today—that his attack on the policies concerning Iraq applies not just to Senator Obama but to the Democratic Party as a whole, that is by definition a generic attack. It is a generic attack on the alternative administration of the United States, in terms of the White House, and it is a generic attack on the party which currently controls the United States House and the Senate. Yet this Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box three years ago and provided the opposition with a lecture in which he said:

... it is never in the interests of this country to have that kind of generic criticism made.

Prime Minister, let us reflect on how these things have been deliberated upon in the councils of the Democratic Party today. It is not just Senator Obama who will be a candidate for the next presidential election through the US Democratic Party primaries; there is also Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards. All these individuals have different policies on Iraq. We may agree or disagree with elements of them. We do not know who ultimately will be the Democratic Party’s candidate for President of the United States—the most important and powerful office in the world—but we do know this: there will be one Democratic Party candidate. The designation which will be attached to that candidate’s name when American citizens go to their ballot boxes will be ‘Democratic Party’. The Prime Minister of Australia has said, effectively, that that Democratic Party—the great party of American politics, the party which led America during the Second World War, the party with which John Curtin formed an alliance in 1941—is the preferred party of terrorists. That is what this Prime Minister has said.

Given that the Prime Minister’s remarks were made only 24 hours or so ago, the reaction that we have had from the United States overnight is quite extraordinary. Democratic Party Senator Ron Wyden said:

The most charitable thing you can say about Mr Howard’s comment is bizarre. We’ll make our own judgments in this country with respect to elections and Barack Obama is a terrific public servant.

But, lest it be assumed that we are making some partisan recourse to a Democratic Party critique of this Prime Minister’s foreign policy pronouncements, let us also see what leading Republicans have said. Texas Republican—Texas is known to be a very conservative state—Senator John Cornyn said:

I would prefer that Mr Howard stay out of our domestic politics and we will stay out of his domestic politics.

We now have comments of that type, calibre and content ricocheting around the US body politic, and the Prime Minister assumes that this is just a trifling matter—that it does not have an effect. Prime Minister, the Congressional Liaison Office at our embassy in Washington—the Prime Minister is aware of its operations as much as I am; it has to deal on a day-to-day basis with members of the House and members of the Senate—will have to deal with these individuals as well. Those people will now have this obstacle to confront as they go through the door to lobby on behalf of Australian farm interests—represented by the National Party from time to time—and to represent other key elements of the Australian economy; they will now have this threshold problem to deal with: ‘You’re from the country whose Prime Minister says that our party is the preferred choice of terrorists.’

Prime Minister, that presents an operational obstacle to our men and women in the field. I do not understand how you can remain stubborn and stand by those statements simply to preserve your own political reputation. The national interest demands that the Prime Minister account to the parliament properly and use this forum which the nation gives us to set the record straight. If the Prime Minister did not mean that, he should stand at the dispatch box and say, ‘Your Prime Minister got it wrong.’ A week ago the Prime Minister did this on the question of climate change. The parliament’s challenge to the Prime Minister today is to do the same when it comes to Iraq. If, a week ago, the Prime Minister could marshal the courage to come in here and say he got it wrong on climate change, the challenge for the Prime Minister today is to do the same on Iraq.

When we look at the future and at how Iraq is going to unfold in the period ahead, one thing is for certain: our alliance with the United States is critical. It is no secret that we on this side of the House voted against the Iraq war. We did so proudly, having considered the arguments which were put by the government and the administration at the time. The decision taken at that stage was absolutely right. It was voted on by every member of this House. We, the Labor Party, voted to a woman and a man against it. Those on the government side voted for it. Four years down the track, let us think about where this war has got us. The Prime Minister has invested $2 billion of Australian taxpayers’ money in this war. This war has become the greatest single foreign policy and national security policy disaster that our country has seen since Vietnam.

This Prime Minister said that our troops would be in Iraq for a matter of months. That was four years ago. This Prime Minister said that the purpose of the Iraq war was to reduce the global terrorist threat. It has done the reverse. This Prime Minister said that we had to go to war to eliminate Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. What turned out to be the case was that there were no such weapons. The Prime Minister’s debating point is that those on this side of the House took the Prime Minister at his word. Prime Minister, here is the difference: we on this side did not believe there was a sufficiently strong case to go to war. You on that side took that decision. That is the difference. This is a hollow debating point about the evidentiary basis at the time, because there were still ultimately concerns about the possibility of other diplomatic opportunities through the United Nations, through Hans Blix, to get to the final truth of this matter. We said, ‘We don’t think you should go to war.’

Prime Minister, you took the country to war—that is what it ended up being—and all these years down the track, four years down the track, there is not even the faintest evidence of anything approaching an exit strategy. Against every measure and standard which this government has set for success in Iraq—within months, not years; ensuring that terrorism would be reduced, not increased; eliminating weapons of mass destruction which did not exist—it has been a rolled gold, first-class foreign policy failure. Despite all of that, the Prime Minister stood before the nation yesterday and provided a public lecture to the American body politic about how this war should be conducted. Prime Minister, it is time that some members of the government began to hang their heads in shame because this war has been nothing short of a public policy disgrace.

One other thing which is always left out of this debate on Iraq is the other argument used post facto, by the foreign minister and others, that this was a war to liberate an oppressed people. Prime Minister, I am not quite sure how we justify selling that message to the 60,000-plus Iraqi civilians who now lie dead from the war. The number itself is open to dispute: is it 60,000 or, as the British Lancet journal said, up to 600,000? There is a huge debate about the civilian carnage which has been wreaked upon that country. In the first months of this war, when the carnage was at its height, this government, through this Prime Minister, became one of the operating and controlling powers within Iraq responsible for the continuing protection of the civilian population. Against all those measures, this war is a rolled gold disaster.

The alliance which is the subject of our debate today has survived since 1941. We in the Labor Party are proud of this alliance because we formed it. This alliance has survived and prospered under 13 prime ministers—Labor and Liberal. It has survived under 12 US presidents—Republican and Democrat. It has survived and prospered because we have all chosen to refrain from the worst forms of partisan comment of the type that we saw from the Prime Minister yesterday. When it comes to the future of this alliance, my challenge to you, Prime Minister, is that you make sure your personal relationship with the President of the United States does not get to a stage where it interferes with the future operation of the alliance. Prime Minister, you stand censured. (Time expired)

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion of censure seconded?

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Above everything else, this is a debate about the crucial importance and strength of the alliance between Australia and the United States. I am entitled, at the beginning of this debate, to put that front and centre of what I am about to say. I hope that, out of this debate, we can make a proper judgement as to which side of politics is better able to maintain the real strength of the alliance.

I do not argue for a moment that the American-Australian alliance is something that has transcended the political divide. It is true that Curtin made a famous declaration in World War II about looking to the United States and it is true that the President at that particular time was the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt. It is also true that the ANZUS alliance, which is the legal foundation of the alliance, was forged by the Menzies government during the presidency of Harry Truman. The treaty was signed in 1951. It is true that the Hawke government cooperated well with the Reagan administration across the political divide. It is true that I cooperated well with the Clinton administration, and I remind the House again that the very first occasion on which this country committed combat troops to the Iraq theatre was in response not to a request from the Bush Republican administration but to a request from the Democrat administration of Bill Clinton. There is no argument that across the political divide there has been cooperation to keep the alliance going, and I hope that will always remain the case in the future.

I reject at the very beginning the argument not only implicit but explicit in what the Leader of the Opposition said: that our side of politics cannot cooperate with the Democrats. I reject the allegation that the remarks I made yesterday—and this is plain from their context—were a generic attack on the American Democrats. As the Leader of the Opposition himself said, there is a great range of views on Iraq inside the Democratic party and amongst their supporters in congress. For example, Joe Lieberman, a man of very great principle, who had his Democrat preselection wrenched away from him by the anti-Iraq Democrats, was successful in winning re-election to the American Senate.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He did win re-election to the American Senate.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What’s that got to do with it?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has got a hell of a lot to do with it! It illustrates the range of views within the Democratic Party on the issue of Iraq—and Senator Clinton is, of course, on the record as having voted in favour of the military operation against Iraq.

Before I come to what I said yesterday and the implications of the Leader of the Opposition’s censure motion, can I take up the Leader of the Opposition on the remarks he made towards the end of his speech about the scepticism he shared about what we said about Saddam Hussein three years ago. He would have us believe that he was highly sceptical, that he was not satisfied that the evidence we presented three years ago was strong enough. Let me remind you of what he said on the Sunrise program on 9 September 2002:

I’ve said repeatedly that there is a significant threat of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.

On Sunrise again, on 16 September, he said:

No one disputes that Saddam Hussein is in violation of a range of UN Security Council resolutions. He is to be condemned utterly for that ...

And in the most remarkable statement of all—and I ask the House to listen to this carefully because it goes to the credibility of what he said a few moments ago—he said:

Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction …

He said that in his normal, unequivocal, unconditional fashion. He then ratchets it up even more:

This is a matter of empirical fact.

It is not a suspicion or a hunch; it is an ‘empirical fact’. He then goes on:

If you don’t believe the intelligence assessments—

and he was hinting a moment ago that he did not—

you simply read the most recent bulletins from the Federation of American Scientists, which list Iraq among the number of states in possession of chemical ... biological weapons and with the capacity to develop a nuclear program.

Laurie Oakes asked, on 16 February 2003:

OAKES: But you know that Saddam Hussein does have chemical and biological weapons?

RUDD: Absolutely, that’s always been part of our official position on Iraq.

On Sunrise again Mr Rudd said:

… we’ve said from the beginning that Saddam Hussein does possess weapons of mass destruction.

Then on Meet the Press two weeks later he said:

Biological weapons is right in the middle of the sandwich when it comes to the critique currently, legitimate critique, of the Iraqi regime.

And so the list goes on. The Leader of the Opposition was front and centre three years ago in believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, yet a moment ago he came into the House and said that he was always sceptical of that. The truth is that three years ago the only real division between the Leader of the Opposition and me in a formal sense—we both agreed that Saddam ought to go; we both agreed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, because that was the available evidence—was that he wanted us to get yet another United Nations resolution, which it was obvious that the Security Council was not going to give us. That was the only real difference three years ago.

But let me return to the other charges that have been made by the Leader of the Opposition. The fundamental one is that he believes that what I have done has been damaging to the alliance between Australia and the United States. Let me put it to him, as calmly as one can in the context of this sort of debate: what is America’s most difficult diplomatic and foreign policy issue at the present time? It is undeniably Iraq. Whether you were for the war or against the war, as things have transpired that is undeniably America’s most difficult foreign policy position. Is it in the interests of the West, is it in the interests of Australia, is it in the interests of the security of our country, that America be defeated in Iraq? I ask anybody who sits opposite: do they really believe that it is in the interests of this nation that America should leave Iraq in circumstances of defeat? I ask any of the doubters out there in the Australian community, and I know there are many doubters about the policy I have pursued: is it in Australia’s interests that our great ally, the greatest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen—and still, for all the criticism that is made of her, a beacon for democracy and openness around the world—be defeated in Iraq? Will that do other than bring about an enormous resurgence of morale amongst terrorists around the world? The answer to that is undeniably, unarguably, that it would be very much against the interests of the West and very much against the interests of Australia.

What does America need in this hour of pressure and trial and need? You may say, ‘Why is it that a country as powerful as that should be under pressure and be under trial and be in need?’ That is the reality of the world. I think she needs some loyalty and some understanding from her closest friends. She does not want a country and a friend that will leave her in the lurch. And they are the words of the Leader of the Opposition. He will not do it immediately. He will try and pretend that it is not happening. I would say the greatest current threat to the quality of the alliance would be a sense in the United States that Australia had deserted her in her hour of need. That, I believe, will do more damage potentially to the alliance than anything I might say about a single aspirant for the Democrat nomination.

I do not apologise for criticising Senator Obama’s observations, because I thought what he said was wrong, just as those who sit opposite reserve the right to criticise Republican presidents. The Leader of the Opposition kept quoting again and again something that I said three years ago. The truth is that three years ago the Leader of the Opposition defended the right of Mark Latham to say what he said about George Bush. He did not criticise him. He pretended yesterday that he privately spoke to him: ‘I said to Latham—’. We can just imagine! The truth is that he did not say anything of the kind. He defended Latham. He said Latham was right to do it. That was only the half of it.

The member for Fremantle quoted something from a Guardian editorial—you can imagine what it said—which said that the United States under George Bush had torn up more international treaties and defied more international conventions than the rest of the world put together over the last 20 years. The truth is that the Leader of the Opposition has double standards on this issue. When it came to a generic attack on the character of the President of the United States, Mark Latham did not stand up and say, ‘I think Bush’s policy on Iraq is wrong’—I mean, he did say that, but what really drew the attention of people was his remark that he was the most dangerous and incompetent President of the United States in living memory.

According to the Leader of the Opposition, that was an exercise in robust free speech. That is apparently all right. But when I say that I think a policy espoused by an aspirant to the Democrat nomination for the presidency of the United States is against our country’s interests and I also think that it gives aid and comfort to terrorists then I am the worst in the world, I am endangering the alliance and I am bringing the nation into disrepute. It is a monumental example of double standards.

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Say the ‘Obama’ word!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Port Adelaide.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition did rightly say that in this world of instant communications what we say is immediately played on television and it ricochets around the world. That is my very point about a remark being made by an aspirant for the nomination.

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Give us his name!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Port Adelaide is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you stand up and say your policy is to bring about a withdrawal of all combat units by March 2008, that is noted by terrorist leaders. It is a source of encouragement and comfort, and we have got to be realistic about it. Bill Hayden once said, ‘Words are bullets.’ And in this particular operation, words spoken by presidential aspirants are, in diplomatic terms, bullets. They do send a signal. They do say to those who think that if they hold out long enough they will defeat the United States that there is real hope that that is going to occur. That is what I said and that is what I had in mind when I made those remarks about Senator Obama. I have no intention of retracting those remarks because I believe they go very much to the national interests of this country.

In the time that I have been Prime Minister, which is now approaching 11 years, I have had the privilege of working with both a Democrat President, in Bill Clinton, and a Republican President, in George Bush. We have agreed on many things in relation to both men. The policy that we pursued in relation to Iraq in 1998 when we sent the SAS to the Middle East in response to a request from Clinton represented an example of the two countries working together in close partnership. We have worked together in very close partnership with the Bush administration ever since President Bush was elected in 2000. We have criticised both administrations. We attacked the Clinton administration’s neglect of Australia’s farm interests over the lamb issue, where I believed the decisions taken by the Clinton administration were unfair and quite hurtful to Australian interests. And when the Republican administration arbitrarily and carelessly imposed tariff quotas in relation to steel on the exports of many countries we were amongst the first to complain, and in 48 hours we secured a dramatic reversal of that decision taken by the Bush administration.

Yes, I have supported the Bush administration on Iraq for the reason that I have outlined. Yes, I believe that for us to pull out of Iraq now would be to hurt an ally at a time of great need for that ally; therefore I am not prepared to do that because I believe that when the going is tough it imposes a greater obligation on you to stand loyally by your allies and friends. The Leader of the Opposition may imagine that if he becomes Prime Minister he can ring up the President and say to him, ‘Look, George, I’m going to pull these troops out within a little while,’ and that the President will say, ‘Okay’—he is a courteous man—and he will accept it. But do you think that will leave the alliance unaffected? Does anybody imagine at the present time that it will do other than great diplomatic and psychological damage to the American position in Iraq and to America’s fight against terrorism for us to do that? I believe it will. That is why I believe overwhelmingly the interests of the alliance are better served by our side of politics.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the censure motion. The Prime Minister correctly said that the most difficult foreign policy issue facing the United States of America is Iraq. Certainly, since the Vietnam War, that has to be the case. In that context, how more inappropriate is the Prime Minister’s attack on Mr Obama, a candidate for President of the United States, and, on his own words, an attack on the Democrat Party itself as it works through these very significant issues facing the people of the United States and, in particular, the young men and women serving that country who are putting their lives literally on the line in Iraq?

The Prime Minister said the subject matter of the alliance was what we had to protect and that that subject matter required loyalty and understanding. But that begs the question—and this is constantly the Prime Minister’s error—as to what is the subject matter of that alliance. The alliance between Australia and the United States of America is not a personal relationship between two men; it is an enduring relationship between the peoples of both countries. The Prime Minister’s attack on Mr Obama and, on his own words, on the Democrats is clearly an affront to a substantial portion—most probably the majority—of the people of the United States of America. That cannot be in Australia’s national interests, particularly in the circumstances where they are trying to work through a resolution to what Republican Senator McCain has described as the ‘train wreck’ which is Iraq.

The alliance has been so strong because it has been sustained and, indeed, grown throughout successive administrations, whether they be Labor or Liberal in Australia, Republican or Democrat in the United States. As the Leader of the Opposition said, that has involved 13 Australian prime ministers and 12 presidents of the United States. In that context, Democrat Senator Ron Wyden said that the Prime Minister’s comments were bizarre and there has been quite sensible advice from a Republican, Senator John Cornyn, who basically said: ‘Stay out of our affairs; we’ll stay out of yours.’ He considered the Prime Minister’s intervention singularly unhelpful as his country tries to resolve what has been described by a Republican as the train wreck, the disaster, which is Iraq—and there is no question it is all of that.

There are estimates of between 60,000 to 450,000 civilians killed in Iraq. It is clear that some 1.3 million people are displaced within Iraq as a result of the most horrid sectarian violence. There are probably about 1.8 million people who have been made refugees from their own country as a result of the invasion of Iraq. The United States of America has spent something like $375 billion to date—funded substantially, I might say, by bonds held by Asian countries, making the economy of the United States and hence the international economy beholden to the holders of those bonds—and it is spending at the rate $US6 billion a month, which is in the order of $A2 billion per week. Quite frankly, the United States economy cannot sustain that sort of commitment, and the international economy will inevitably suffer the consequences of that burden that is being placed on the United States economy.

The greater sacrifice—and this is precisely why we have no right to interfere in this very important debate that is taking place in the United States—is the fact that now over 3,000 young Americans have been killed in Iraq. They are men and women whose bravery, commitment and dedication—that is obvious—we acknowledge in no uncertain terms. And some 20,000 young Americans—more than would fill a local suburban sports stadium—have been maimed fighting in this conflict. For the Australian Prime Minister to seek to intervene in those circumstances is, quite frankly, offensive.

From the point of view of national interest, how are Democrat members of the congress supposed to regard Australia? Firstly, they are undertaking any number of inquiries into the Australian Wheat Board fiasco. I think they will be coming after some government members, but that is a side issue. In the interests of their nation and our nation they have to consider a number of pieces of legislation that will directly impact on Australia, including those which impact through the free trade agreement, most notably, as referred to by the Leader of the Opposition, the farm bill. The Democrats hold the majority in the congress at the moment. That is not why you should necessarily be beholden or not be beholden to Democrat members of congress; it simply underlines how unwise and irresponsible it was for our Prime Minister to seek to intervene in the internal affairs of the United States of America. Indeed, we have been monitoring public comment in the United States as a result of the Prime Minister’s intervention, and it is being dismissed by congressmen and senators alike and, indeed, the response of call-back commentators has been, ‘Well, we have always known that Prime Minister Howard is a mate of George Bush.’

The trouble with that is that it narrows the alliance to being an alliance, and being perceived to be an alliance, between two men rather than what it is: an alliance between the people of both nations—an enduring alliance. But the Prime Minister has justified his intervention on the basis of, on the one hand, mateship and, secondly, his analysis as to what will enliven terrorism around the world. I will address both of those issues.

It is the case that Australians have a culture of standing by a mate in a fight—and moments have occurred that I am not proud of; perhaps my nose is not as straight as it otherwise should be because of that. John Williamson in his famous song True Blue includes the line:

Is it standing by your mate

When he’s in a fight?

But Australians are also people of common sense: if your mate is copping a hiding or being used up you will tell them the reality; you will tell them the truth. You will not give blind loyalty to a mate who is in strife. And this is where our Prime Minister has not been the friend the President of the United States needs and certainly not the friend the people of the United States need. He has not spoken the reality.

The reality, quite frankly, of his criticism of Mr Obama and Mr Obama’s bill is that Mr Obama’s statements and the bill essentially reflect the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. After that report was handed down the Prime Minister said words to the effect that the views of that study group had much to commend them and were worth considering. He has now turned from that point of view to undertaking a personal attack, we say, on the Democrats; he says on Mr Obama. Indeed, he says Mr Obama is the candidate of choice for al-Qaeda. The reality is that the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group were based on the realisation that, quite frankly, the al-Maliki government in Iraq is not stepping up to the plate. The Iraq Study Group in fact doubted whether Prime Minister al-Maliki had the ability or the willingness to take on some of the sectarian militias because at least one of them provided him with a support base.

In fact, the national security assessment that the Prime Minister referred to did not and should not be represented by the Prime Minister as commenting on either the plan of phased withdrawal as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton report or the escalation of the additional 21,000 troops committed by President Bush. What it did say was that Iraqi leaders will be hard-pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this estimate. I will go through why that is the case. If you are going to look at common-sense strategies, which, we suggest, have been part of the Baker-Hamilton recommendations, you should not go past the comments of generals on the ground. In that context, in January of this year the then Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces in Iraq, General Casey, said this:

The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to make hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all Iraq’s problems, which are at base their problems.

That is, quite frankly, the reality. The White House national security adviser cautioned about the intervention by the office of the Prime Minister of Iraq to stop military action against Shiah targets and encourage them against Sunni ones. He cautioned about the removal of Iraq’s most effective commanders on sectarian bases and efforts to ensure Shiah majority in all other ministries.

The Iraq Study Group, as I have mentioned, cautioned about the links between the Iraqi Prime Minister and militias, and the Department of Defence in August last year gave a damming assessment of the competence of the al-Maliki administration. To extract some of those main points, they said that some Iraqi politicians ‘are condoning or maintaining support for violent means as a source of political leverage’. They also said that an increasing number of death squads, to use their language, including those formed from ‘rogue elements of the Iraqi security forces’, prevailed in the country. They spoke of corruption in ministries hampering their capabilities, with experienced or talented employees being purged and replaced with party elements or cronies. Indeed, they very much emphasised that the Iraqi government had a long way to go to get its house in order.

The logic in those circumstances of giving an open-ended, unconditional, open-cheque-book commitment to a regime which has shown an inability and, indeed, an unwillingness to get its house in order stands for all to see. That is why the Iraq Study Group in its Baker-Hamilton report recommended a phased withdrawal of American troops in order to put pressure on the Iraqi administration to step up to the plate and accept responsibility for their own security. Obviously you can have a different point of view about these issues. Obviously you are entitled to voice those points of view if you are a national leader. But what you are not entitled to do is engage in personal attack and intervene in the internal politics of the American people when they are trying to resolve these issues.

I also want to address in conclusion a couple of other points made by the Prime Minister in saying that the Leader of the Opposition—and I should be included in that along with others and, indeed, our own researchers—noted the advice that we had received that there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Where we differed and why we opposed the intervention in Iraq was that there was not the urgency present. It was significant because part of the legal basis for the intervention in Iraq was that pre-emption was predicated on a situation of urgency. At no stage did we say that the threat of imminent attack had been established. We spoke out and voted in opposition to the war because the United Nations had not been allowed to undertake their investigation—again, in accordance with the international rule of law. There is no question that the invasion of Iraq was contrary to the international rule of law. The international community does not have ownership of it as a result of that fact. There is no question that Iraq is a train wreck. There is no question that an open-ended, open-cheque-book and unconditional commitment to an administration that is using a United States—(Time expired)

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

Firstly, in strongly defending the Prime Minister’s position on this issue, I think that it is worth remembering that there are three principal elements to this debate. The first is the alliance between Australia and the United States. The second is the role of al-Qaeda and other global terrorist networks not only in Iraq but in the region and throughout the world. The third issue is the role of Australia’s Prime Minister in protecting and defending Australia’s interests not only here and in our region but, indeed, throughout the world.

On the alliance, no Australian should forget that in 1942, when bombs were landing in Darwin and Townsville and Australian soldiers were engaged in a gripping struggle on the Kokoda Track and repelling the Japanese at Milne Bay and Isurava, the Americans were in the Coral Sea and Guadalcanal and they lost many lives. Australia today is a free country for many reasons, but one of them is that United States fought the war in the Pacific. This government, and I am sure also the opposition, does not forget that. That is why the formalisation of that alliance in 1951 is so important to the defence and security architecture not only of Australia but also of our region and, indeed, the mutual elements of that alliance as they are executed throughout the world today.

The second thing is the point about al-Qaeda. In relation to the stated position of one of the presidential candidates in the United States, Senator Obama, regarding a specific withdrawal date, which we understand does not relate to conditions on the ground in Iraq, the Prime Minister said yesterday that al-Qaeda would be putting a circle around that date and with some enthusiasm would certainly be supporting that kind of policy outcome in the United States and, I am sure, in other countries that are involved in Iraq.

It is important, when the heat is taken out of this debate, for us as Australians to understand what we are facing. It is worth remembering that in 1993 there was a bombing at the World Trade Centre. Six people were dead and 1,000 were injured. A number of other terrorist events, principally but not only against US interests, occurred over the subsequent three years. We then had the Kenya bombing of the US embassy by al-Qaeda with nearly 300 dead and 5,000 injured. Then in 1998, the same year, the Tanzanian US embassy was bombed and there were 10 dead and 77 injured. Again, al-Qaeda was responsible.

In 2000 the USS Cole was attacked by al-Qaeda with 17 dead and 39 injured. And then, of course, on September 11, more than 3,000 people, mainly but not only Americans—there were also Australians—were killed in the al-Qaeda inspired and executed bombing of the World Trade Centre and the attack on the Pentagon. Anyone who has seen the film Flight 93 will get just a glimpse of the terror that was inflicted upon the people on that aircraft. We then had a parade bombing in 2002 in Russia—which is rather ironic given the comments of President Putin in the last 24 hours. Again there were casualties: 150 wounded and 42 dead. We then saw some 88 Australians murdered in Bali in 2002. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for that. Samudra, Hambali, Muklas and others had trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Then, of course, we had an attack on Israeli tourists in Kenya.

The fact is our generation and my children’s generation faces something that is no less a threat to our way of life, our security and our values than the one we faced in 1942. It is harder to see, but it is ubiquitous, which means that it is all over the place. It is throughout the world. And, as we know from some of the cases being conducted in Australian courts, sadly, we have some people in our own country that subscribe to this way of thinking.

The fact is that we are facing something that is really a global insurgency. We are dealing with disparate principally Islamist groups who have hijacked the name of Islam to build a violent political utopia. Al-Qaeda, to whom the Prime Minister referred—one of the many reasons, I might add, why the United States government has just increased its troop numbers in Iraq—is an organisation that is fundamentally and fanatically opposed to not only the United States but also the United Kingdom, Australia and similar countries throughout the world, whether they be Judaeo-Christian, Jewish or indeed Muslim countries—countries that are open to other human beings, to other ideas. They have an attitude about the treatment of women which is incompatible with a peaceful world, let alone a civil society. One of the reasons why al-Qaeda, for example, has been targeting teachers in Baghdad, particularly at the Baghdad university, is that they are educating women. They are also people who are fundamentally and fanatically opposed to people who have a different religious affiliation or point of view from their own. That is what we are dealing with.

In this day and age, in the year 2007, the thinking world, Australia in particular, needs strong leadership. We need moral musculature. We need the capacity to stand up to these people. We need a leadership and a vision that make Australians understand that ensuring the security of our country, and our interests, our values and our people is not confined to our borders and our region—to prevent failing states in our region. Australians also need to understand that throughout South-East Asia, Asia and indeed the Middle East we face a common enemy.

It is also important to appreciate that we did criticise the United States for what was described by the Daily Telegraph in Sydney as ‘the great lamb betrayal’. We survived the Whitlam years, and the US-Australia alliance survived that as well. We have survived many other things, and the alliance has grown and, in my opinion, it has never been stronger than it is today.

But it is worth remembering that we are in Iraq today because the world believed—as the Leader of the Opposition knew and said—that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That was in a post September 11 world, after more than 3,000 people had been killed, murdered, in New York and Washington. The world knew he had weapons of mass destruction, but what could not be established beyond any doubt, because he would not allow the United Nations to go in and have a look, was whether he still had those weapons of mass destruction that could then be passed on to terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda. We made the decision that the world was better off without Saddam Hussein. With all of the carnage and the bloodshed and the sacrifice that we see in Iraq on a day-to-day basis—principally in four of the 18 provinces of Iraq, I might add—no-one should forget that, before the United States, Britain, Australia and almost 30 other countries decided to free the Iraqi people, Saddam Hussein was responsible for the deaths of, on average, 70,000 people a year for 15 years. That is 200 a day. That was centralised killing—government-sanctioned centralised killing by Saddam Hussein.

It is also important that Australians recognise that we have a responsibility to Australia and Australians to see that we go to the heart of terrorist activity in the Middle East and also, of course, in Afghanistan. We also believed it was important, when the United Kingdom and the United States—our key allies, who have fought so hard to see that we are free—said to us that they believed Australia had a responsibility to be part of this, that we stepped up to the plate and said, ‘Yes, we most certainly will.’

The problem is that if we take the easy approach, if we take the approach that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow spokesman for foreign affairs just articulated, we will leave our children hostage to forces they may never control. We will also diminish ourselves and demean the values for which that alliance has stood and for which our country has stood in its relatively short history. Never let it be said that my children will look back and say of John Howard and the Howard government: why did they not stand up to al-Qaeda and other global terrorist networks when they had the opportunity and the responsibility to do so? That is what a premature withdrawal from Iraq is really all about. And it ought to be remembered that we are in Iraq, the United States are in Iraq and the United Kingdom are in Iraq at the request of the democratically elected Iraqi government, as endorsed by the United Nations. The media over the past week, particularly in the American press, has actually been for the Iraqis to request that the Baghdad security plan be implemented more quickly. This is hard going, but, as any Australian well knows, when the going gets tough the tough get going.

The member for Barton reminded us of John Williamson’s song True Blue. I would remind him of Beccy Cole, who just won an award in Tamworth for her song Poster Girl. She said late last year:

My Australia is a country of fiercely loyal buggers who stand by their mates and who won’t back down from their beliefs.

We are never going to take the view that the defence and protection of Australia in the modern world, in the 21st century, is solely about the 500 defence personnel on our borders and about support and protection and assistance to countries in our immediate region. What happens in Iraq and Afghanistan has everything to do with Australia and Australian interests. Sadly, the cruellest price has already been paid by almost 100 Australians in Bali and in other parts of the world. It is also important to remember that isolationism will never make us safer. The biggest threat that the United States strategic policy represents to not only Australia but the rest of the world is not military adventurism; it is isolationism.

When the Prime Minister of Australia stands up and criticises a presidential candidate for election in the United States for setting a specific date for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, our Prime Minister has a responsibility to stand up and protect the interests of Australia. If al-Qaeda prevails in Iraq, we will most certainly leave the Iraqi people—12 million of whom showed enormous courage to vote—at their mercy. Many Australians grizzle and groan about having to go and vote every three or four years, whereas 12 million Iraqis risked their lives to say, ‘We believe in what the United States, Britain, Australia and the thinking world wants to help us achieve.’

We will also leave those Iraqi people at the mercy of the sectarian death squads of al-Qaeda. We know from al-Zarqawi’s letter to Osama bin Laden in January 2004 that al-Qaeda’s entire strategy in Iraq was to foment sectarian violence. It planned the al-Askari shrine bombing in Samarra in January last year to make sure that the Shiah would start to respond to a litany of attacks against Shiah interests so that there would be a sectarian war. Since when has it ever been the Australian way to say in response to that, ‘Ah, well, we’re out of it; we’ll just look after ourselves’? Since when has it been the Australian way to say to the United States of America, ‘We’re dropping our bundle; you can go and lift it for us’? It is delusional to say that only the US, Britain and these countries can take up the war against al-Qaeda and these global terrorist networks.

It is extremely important to appreciate that the Leader of the Opposition has chosen to criticise and attack the Prime Minister of Australia for standing up for Australian interests in relation to what is being said in the United States because the position presented by Senator Obama is precisely the position I suspect we are about to get from the Leader of the Opposition. In other words, he will not have the guts to go through the year 2007 declaring any real position, but as soon as he gets to the other side of the election—God forbid if he were to become the Prime Minister of Australia—he will suddenly do the thing that Australia has never done and simply say to our mate, our ally, the United States of America, ‘We’re leaving it all to you.’ Under no circumstances will this government or our Prime Minister expose Australia’s interests.

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Rudd’s) be agreed to.

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

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.