Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister update the House on the security situation in Iraq? Is the minister aware of any other approaches and what is the government’s response?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, I thank the member for Boothby for his question. He is a very strong member and doing a very good job for the people of Boothby.

The security situation in Iraq is difficult and I think that was clearly underlined by the grim news overnight of over 170 innocent people being killed by suicide bombings in trucks. Probably, but not certainly, the people responsible will have been al-Qaeda because the bulk of suicide bombings in Iraq are committed by al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda related organisations.

We have a simple view and that is that people who do that sort of thing are simply beyond the pale. We would never want to be defeated by such people and such tactics, and we would never want to see the people of Iraq dominated or ruled by such people. That is why we take the view that there needs to be a continual commitment to security in Iraq until the Iraqi security forces are able to take care of security on their own without the likes of those committing the atrocities overnight being able to take over the security of the country. That is quite a simple proposition. That is not a political proposition; that is a policy proposition.

The member for Barton, who is the opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, said on the World Today yesterday that the Iraqi government will have to step up and take charge of security or ultimately lose power. In other words, the Labor position is that all foreign troops should be withdrawn from Iraq and we will see how the Iraqi security forces go. If they cannot do the job, the terrorists and insurgents will take over the country. We think that is an irresponsible position because we believe it is important that the terrorists and insurgents are not able to take control of the country. It is as simple as that. I think most Iraqis, by the way, would agree with that proposition. I noticed the Labour leader saying something that I thought was very true. On 13 July, he said:

In Iraq, we have duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep in support of the democratically elected government and in support of the explicit will of the international community.

When I say ‘Labour leader’ I mean the British Labour leader, Gordon Brown. From our own Labor leader, the member for Griffith, we get—as I think the House knows only too well—policy contortions the like of which we have not seen in this House before. Listening to question time today reminds me of it. There is a stench of hypocrisy, if I could put it that way, wafting across to this side of the House. I remember, when Mark Latham said in March 2004 that Labor would withdraw troops by Christmas, the member for Griffith going around the press gallery—and people in the press gallery remember this—backgrounding and saying he did not agree with that policy. It is somewhat reminiscent of the comments by the Leader of the Opposition on 27 November 2006 when he said to Fran Kelly, the well-known ABC reporter:

I’ve said repeatedly last week, and I’ve said it again this week, that I support Mr Beazley’s leadership of the Labor Party. My position on that hasn’t changed.

Four days later there was a leadership challenge and up turns the member for Griffith challenging Mr Beazley, the member for Brand. My point being that, in the weeks leading up to that, he was constantly backgrounding people in the press gallery about how he wanted to knock off the member for Brand. He was undermining the member for Brand throughout that period. I do not think it sits comfortably for somebody like the member for Griffith, the Leader of the Opposition, to be running the sort of campaign he is running today, because people in the press gallery have seen him backgrounding against his colleagues, including his leader—two leaders, the member for Brand and Mark Latham—in the most vicious of ways, and we have heard of that backgrounding, so I suspect it would be best if we heard no more from the Leader of the Opposition on his hypocrisy.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! Members on both sides are holding up their question time.