Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This parliament is again debating the question of when we should intervene as a sovereign nation to assist another sovereign nation where lives are threatened. This is an issue on which I have spoken in this place before in the context of our involvement in Afghanistan and on which I expect to rise again in the future. The question of Australian intervention overseas has a long history. In 1991, Bob Hawke quoted Neville Chamberlain from 1938, when Chamberlain had said, 'Why should we be concerned with a faraway country of which we know little? Hawke said the response to Chamberlain's question was provided by the horrific events that followed. He said to the parliament, 'The great lesson of this century is that peace is bought at too high a price if that price is the appeasement of aggression.'

There are times when the international community has made mistakes in intervening. Many have argued we should not have intervened in Vietnam and in retrospect, I think, almost everybody agrees we should have intervened earlier in Srebrenica and Rwanda.

In the context of considering Iraq, the intervention in 2003, as the member for Sydney has pointed out, colours every debate. The decision to rush to war is, I think, broadly recognised to have been a mistake in 2003 and the errors should weigh heavily on the shoulders of all of us. In 2003, the lack of international support and the lack of support from the majority of Iraqi peoples were factors which played into the mistakes that occurred in the intervention in Iraq. The question today when this parliament is discussing the government's decision to supply weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga is whether this is the right way in which we should intervene.

Everyone in this debate recognises that IS is a brutal force. They have engaged in mass killings of men and women and children. They have engaged in the brutal slaughter in medieval fashion of journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley. IS have killed Christians, Yazidis, Sunni and Shiite. It claims theological underpinnings but no religion supports the rape of women, the killing of children, the murder of innocents. IS poses a clear danger to Iraqis who wish to live in peace. According to the UN refugee agency, around 1.2 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes.

Labor have said very clearly that we do not want regular forces on the ground in Iraq and we welcome the Prime Minister ruling out sending Australian combat troops to Iraq. My views on this, as those of the member for Sydney, are shaped by former Labor Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, who has been instrumental in shaping the notion of a responsibility to protect. He argues that a set of criteria ought to apply to considering any instance of Australian involvement in assisting those at risk in other countries.

The first of those criteria is just cause: is there a threat of serious and irreparable harm to human beings? It is very clear that this is a looming genocide. The second is right intention: is the intention of the military action to prevent human suffering or for other motives? I think it is clear in this instance that the main intention of the military action is to prevent human suffering. The third is final resort: has every other measure besides military intervention been taken into account? It is clear that, without weapons, there is a real risk that Iraqi security forces will not be able to hold off IS and protect the people in the Kurdish regions. The fourth is legitimate authority. We have been advised in this case that the proposed actions have been authorised by the government of Iraq.

The fifth is proportional means: are the minimum necessary means being applied to secure human protection? This is clearly met by humanitarian drops of food, water and medicine. As for arming the Peshmerga, that is the most challenging to the tests I have mentioned so far, but is my view that, without arming the Peshmerga, it is difficult to see how they will be able to protect themselves against the ruthless advance of IS.

The sixth criterion is reasonable prospect: is it likely that the action will protect human life and are the consequences of this action sure not to be worse than no action at all? Again, we cannot be absolutely certain of this, but the advance of IS does pose an existential threat to the people in the Kurdish regions of Iraq.

My views are also shaped by the words of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, who said:

The international community must show solidarity.

Not a single country or any organization can handle this international terrorism. This has been a global concern. Therefore, I really appreciate some key countries which have been showing very determined, decisive actions …

He went on to say:

… without addressing this issue through certain means, including military and counter-terrorism actions, we will just end up allowing these terrorist activities to continue.

That view is an important one to take into account in considering Australia's action in the region.

My views on 'responsibility to protect' are shaped too by Michael Ignatieff, a professor at the Kennedy School at Harvard while I was there, who also has been a very thoughtful scholar about the challenges for international law in considering when to intervene in another nation for humanitarian reasons. The tests which he has laid down in his writings are, I believe, met in this instance.

In order for there to be lasting security for the people who are threatened by IS, it is absolutely vital that the Iraqi government govern for all Iraqis. The mistakes that were made under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are mistakes that I hope will not be repeated under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. I think it is vital for a lasting peace in Iraq and for its people to be able to continue their lives in safe and secure circumstances that the new Iraqi government be as inclusive as possible. Eli Berman and David Kilcullen, two eloquent writers on counter-terrorism, have made the point that the growth of insurgent movements is so often fuelled by a failure of government to provide the basics—electricity, education, health care and welfare services—where that failure can turn young men to extremism for moral and material sustenance. So it is vital that Australia assist for humanitarian purposes, and I call on the government to rethink its short-sighted cuts to Australia's foreign aid budget.

Australia is a country which under Labor moved towards providing a more generous level of foreign aid; the new government has cut foreign aid. Ultimately, foreign aid is an important underpinning of security which ensures that we are more rarely called upon to make interventions such as this one. As the member for Sydney has noted, the response from Australia to the Syria crisis has been miserly indeed. The United Nations has called for $6½ billion; we have given just $30 million. (Time expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To date, this year, more than a million Iraqis have been forced to flee from their homes. We have witnessed the dreadful human tragedy of beheadings, crucifixions and mass executions beaming into our living rooms via television and onto iPads. Peoples and cultures which have existed for thousands and thousands of years are presently faced with extermination. Women in the tens of thousands have been forced into sexual slavery. The United States President, Barack Obama, has labelled what is happening at the hands of the ISIS movement a potential genocide. I am so pleased that our Prime Minister refuses to call it a state, because it is not. Let us call it what it actually is, not what it claims to be. It is evil. It is terrorism. It has been described by the United Nations as a terrorist group. The United Nations has accused ISIS of committing mass atrocities and war crimes. This is not a debate against a religion; this is a topic for discussion against terrorism, as it ought to be.

I would like to read the words of an Australian Army general to departing troops, who were heading home after a deployment. I think the words of this major-general need to be listened to very carefully. They need to be followed. He said:

When you all arrive, I ask people to do three things. I ask you all to be brilliant at the basics, to work as a team and to see the bigger picture. The thing I want to reflect on most, not only the fact that you were all brilliant at the basics and you did your job, but how you have worked as a team. Across the Army, Navy, Air Force, you have all worked together. You worked providing logistics support, whether you have been providing intelligence support, whether you've been driving people around, you have all been supporting each other. It's been fantastic. I want to say 'thank you' to you, but I also want you to go home and do something for me – I want you to go to your families and say 'thank you' to them. Whether you've got a wife, children, husband, partner, sister or brother. Even if you're a tough guy and you've been over here on your tour and you know you can carry yourself – they all worry about you. And every moment you're away they care for you. They think about you and they worry about you. Please go home and pass on my thanks and our thanks for their support. Without them doing all the work, keeping your family and everything going at home, we would not be able to do the work we do here. So thank you for your service. Have a great trip home. You have enjoyed your time here. You have worked hard. But also, when you go home – one final thing – be prepared for another war. There are plenty of wars out there and plenty of conflicts waiting for you. Don't rush to it. Don't charge into it. It will find you in its own good time but I can assure you it will find you. So go home and have a break. Recharge. Repair. And be rested ready for the next one.

So again thank you.

Those words are not warmongering. Those words are not promoting war for war's sake. Those words are from an Australian Army general who knows the reality of the situation. He knew the reality then; it still exists today. And they fit in perfectly with what the Prime Minister said just the other day, and said very eloquently:

… peaceful democracies, peaceful pluralist democracies like Australia shrink rightly and understandably from reaching out to these conflicts but just because we would prefer to stand aside from these conflicts doesn't mean that these conflicts will stand aside from us.

His words dovetail in with what the major general said.

What Australia is doing is providing humanitarian airdrops. We have done that twice. We are providing logistical airlifts of equipment, including military equipment. There is no talk at the moment about combat troops on the ground, and hopefully that will not need to happen. But we are doing what we can and what we have been asked to do, and we are doing it very well—in a very dangerous situation, I might add. We should always, always applaud the brave men and women of our Army, our Air Force and our Navy for doing what they do not just on our behalf but for the people for whom they are serving.

I would now also like to quote from the member for Bass, Andrew Nikolic, who was the commandant of Kapooka, the army recruit training centre near Wagga Wagga, in my Riverina electorate. He was the commandant there in 2004 and early 2005, before he went to Iraq. He said:

… there's been a fair bit of hyperbole from Mr Wilkie—more attention-seeking behaviour from him. But let's talk about the facts. The fact is there's nothing in the Constitution or defence legislation that requires the executive to engage in endless debate with Mr Wilkie and Mr Bandt or to first get a vote through parliament.

And that is correct. He was asked by the ABC's Leon Compton: 'Are we going to war in Iraq again?' And his response was:

Absolutely not. What we're doing is we're responding to a humanitarian crisis. We're acting to prevent what many people can see has the potential to become a genocide, as we've seen, through dropping humanitarian supplies to people in mountain tops in Mount Sinjar, in the drops to Shiah Turkmen residents of Amerli in northern Iraq, and this has been done with the permission of the government in Iraq. In coming days we'll have C17 aircraft involved in airlifting equipment and supplies to Erbil in the Kurdish part of Iraq, and these are things that we need to do to stop the spread of ISIS or ISIL, or whatever they call themselves, and engaging in the sort of activities that we have seen on our TV on a daily basis.

I quoted the member for Bass because he knows what he is talking about, unlike the Greens, unlike the member for Denison. When it comes to these sorts of things, he has been there. He has seen it. He has served. He knows what he is talking about. I know that he, in his heart of hearts, has the best intentions for Australia and for the northern Iraqis very much at heart.

On Saturday, at the Federal Council of the National Party, an urgency motion—the very first, in fact—was moved:

That this Federal Council implores the Federal Government to urgently increase the humanitarian intake of vulnerable religious minorities from northern Iraq and Syria—

as well as calling for an increase in foreign aid to northern Iraq and a boost to the humanitarian refugee intake, as I said. That was passed as an urgency motion. It was moved by the National Women's Council of the Nationals and seconded by Queensland Senator Barry O'Sullivan, and it was passed unanimously, as it should be.

The Greens would have parliament decide our response to assistance in northern Iraq. But this action is, as it always has been, the decision of the Executive Council, and ultimately the Prime Minister of the day, based on—of course—the advice from our highest ranking military chiefs. This is how it should be. I am not quite sure what the Greens would have us do. They go around and they say things such as what was said by Senator Whish-Wilson:

I think we need to find better words than 'terrorist' and 'terrorism' because, to me, this implies a very one-sided view of the world.

As both major parties, Labor and the coalition, hold sensible discussions over national security, the Greens use the Senate to call for 'terrorists' and 'terrorism' to be dropped from the vocabulary because it encourages extremism. I mean, what would the Greens have us do? What would Senator Milne have us do? Would she have us debate the merits or otherwise of what we absolutely need to do—and that is humanitarian assistance—whilst they wring their hands and do media doorstops on this, or would they have our Army, our Air Force and our Navy get in and do the job that we asked them to do and that the Iraqi government has asked them to do? That is to provide much-needed assistance to people who are in a desperate plight—people who are facing death. As the Prime Minister said, this is not a state it is a death cult. If the Greens got that through, what would their next step be? Would they then request to go back to their branch party meetings whilst again wringing their hands, eating tofu, drinking chamomile tea and basket weaving while they decided what we should do to help the people of the world?

That is what this is about. It is actually providing much-needed assistance. It is not about—as the Greens would have us believe—making grandstanding mileage out of this very important human tragedy. We need to act; we are acting. I commend both Labor and the coalition for supporting this absolutely-needed assistance. And I certainly commend those people who are providing that valuable assistance.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to express my condolences to the families and friends of the many people who have been killed in cold blood in recent months by members of the Islamic State, with their killers revelling in their cowardly, sickening and medieval brutality.

Secondly, I want to agree with and endorse the comments made by Gareth Evans concerning Iraq. He writes:

THE current Western military intervention in Iraq is not 2003 revisited, and Australia is right to be part of it. The action is being taken at the request of the Iraqi government, …

…   …   …

Its objective is explicitly humanitarian, to protect civilian populations immediately at risk of genocide or other mass atrocity crimes from the marauding Islamic State militant forces, who in their march across Iraq have already perpetrated atrocities unrivalled in their savagery.

He goes on to say:

The intervention is not based, as was the attack on Saddam Hussein, on generalised human rights concerns, or beliefs—later proved completely unfounded—about that regime’s possession of weapons of mass destruction or support for terrorist organisations.

…   …   …

… it is completely consistent, in a way the earlier action was clearly not, with the principles of the international responsibility to protect (R2P) people at risk of mass atrocity crimes that was embraced unanimously by the UN General Assembly in 2005.

He describes the generally-accepted criteria for the responsibility to protect as being five things:

… the atrocities occurring or feared are sufficiently serious to justify, prima facie, a military response; that the response has a primarily humanitarian motive; that no lesser response is likely to be effective in halting or averting the harm; that the proposed response is proportional to the threat; and that the intervention will actually be effective, doing more good than harm.

He continues:

All these bases seem to be covered here. The available evidence is that the many thousands of men, women and children in northern Iraq—Shi’ites, Kurds or those perceived as Sunni apostates—remain at risk of genocidal slaughter by the advancing Islamic State forces.

I also agree—not for the first time, by the way—with the London lord mayor, Boris Johnson, who has written that we have a responsibility to help the Kurds in Iraq. He said:

… it is obvious to most sane and rational people … that one of the results of the end of Saddam and the Ba’athist tyranny has been the power vacuum in Iraq, and the incompetence that has allowed Isis to expand with such horrifying speed.

He says that the Kurds in Iraq:

… have a democratic system; they are pushing forward with women’s rights; they insist on complete mutual respect of all religions.

As he says:

It would be an utter tragedy if we did not do everything in our power to give succour and relief to those who are now facing massacre and persecution, and to help repel the maniacs from one of the few bright spots in the Middle East.

He concludes by saying:

Yes, we have got it wrong before; and yes, we cannot do everything. But that doesn’t mean we should collapse into passivity and quietism in the face of manifest evil. These people need our help.

And I agree with that.

I now want to make some broader remarks, because the problem of violence in our world is by no means confined to Iraq and, frankly, we need to do better. What awful news we hear: the beheading of journalists; the shooting down of the Malaysian civilian plane; and the conflict in Gaza, with Palestinians shooting rockets at Israeli civilians and Israeli bombs killing Palestinian children. These events, and many others, suggest that the world is not becoming a safer place; and I do not think that it is becoming a better place. I believe that making the world safe for civilians is core business for anyone who is involved in public policy. If the world is unsafe then everything else becomes unimportant.

So how can we make the world safer for civilians? I think there should be United Nations peacekeepers in Iraq, in Syria, in Ukraine, in Gaza and around the world wherever there is conflict and wherever there are civilian lives at risk. Australia will hold the United Nations Security Council presidency for a month in November. What should we be doing with this rare and important opportunity? Like others, I am dismayed and often disgusted by events in Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Afghanistan and Ukraine. I know the people of North Korea are brutalised by their leaders and that drug lords in Mexico and Colombia routinely put on public display the bodies of those that they have executed. The antics of Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and other violent fundamentalists make me sick. I do not believe in unilateral action of the Coalition of the Willing kind. As we have seen only too clearly from Vietnam to Iraq, that only makes matters worse with violence begetting violence.

But I do not believe that we can just sit here and shrug our shoulders and say that there is nothing we can do about it. I do believe in collective international action to solve problems, and of course we have the United Nations established precisely to solve international problems and to seek to improve on the abysmal record of the first and second world wars. I know that it does a lot of good, but the level of global violence suggests that it needs to be doing much more. Why does it not do more? That would be because the big powers, members of the UN Security Council, with a veto power over UN action, are prepared to turn a blind eye to cover up the sins and misdeeds of their allies and supporters. No-one has clean hands here—not the United States, not Russia, not China. All three of them are guilty of putting up with outrageous conduct when it is done by one of their supporters and all three are willing to use their veto power in the Security Council to stop the UN from taking meaningful action.

Over my years of political life I have come to realise that a key measure of political integrity is what political leaders are prepared to tolerate by way of misconduct from people in their camp. At present the big powers, instead of working together to put an end to war and political violence, are prepared to tolerate way too much. Of course, getting the big powers to lift their game is no easy matter, but I make three observations that might help. First, people concerned about global conflict should seek to breath new life into the responsibility to protect. This doctrine took a long time to develop and was very quickly put into cold storage after Libya, but it does have the potential to save civilian lives and we should demand that the UN Security Council uses it when outbreaks of violence occur. Some people might think that this will require a lot more resources for the UN, but it is nonsense to think that we do not have these resources readily at hand. The US, Russia and China have massive numbers of troops and equipment at their disposal. All that is required is for some of these resources to be used in the international peacekeeping effort.

Second, we should be wary of the way that trade agreements and global trading arrangements act as a handbrake and make countries reluctant to tell home truths to their trading partners. Countries around the world should not allow their independence and self-sufficiency to become so compromised that they cannot say what needs to be said or do what needs to be done.

Third, our attitude matters. Everyone has to be willing to put the weights on the big powers and demand action from them. It is not good enough to let them blame this or that rogue state or rogue general or rogue religious leader. We should tell the big powers that we know they can fix the problem, if they genuinely want to, or, if they cannot, that the world is willing to help out. It is not an easy road to hoe, to be sure, and often inconvenient, but far superior to Coalition of the Willing type unilateral action, which has proven to be disastrous, and far superior to fatalism and meekly allowing this violence to continue or trying to pick up the refugee pieces. That is an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff when what is needed are more fences at the top. An ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure and we should use our time in the sun chairing the Security Council to advocate that.

At present we are too fatalistic about the sins of the big powers. We think that there is nothing we can do about them. Many countries, Australia included, attach themselves to one or other of the great powers and rely on that to keep them safe. I am not saying that we should detach ourselves from the US alliance; that is not my position at all. What I am saying is that being part of an alliance does not mean we are obliged to turn a blind eye to misconduct. Indeed, we often do our friends a favour when we point out where they are going wrong.

I have put the focus squarely on the UN and the Security Council, but anyone who thought that in doing so I am trying to put roadblocks in the path of international action or delay international action would be very wrong. As I indicated earlier in my remarks, I believe that international action is absolutely necessary. I note that the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has said that international action is urgent, and he is right.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wills for his comments, the latter part of which I substantially concur with. There were other aspects, which I might take up at another time. But I want to speak today in support of the Prime Minister's statement on Iraq. He made the statement earlier this week outlining the commitment that Australia has made to supporting an international approach to combat the advances of a group that poses the greatest threat to life and liberty in Iraq and the Middle East in recent memory. The situation in Iraq is nothing short of dire, and I regret that in the week that has passed since I last spoke on this matter no light at the end of the tunnel has been realised for millions of Iraqis and the matter has, regrettably, continued in a very dark direction.

The self-styled Islamic State, which neither represents Islam nor is a 'state', as the Prime Minister has said, is purely a jihadist group that seeks to gain power through torture, oppression, rape, slavery and summary executions. I have never witnessed innocent women and children treated in the brutal way that we have seen. I have never witnessed people who have been detained being summarily executed in the way we have seen in the case of the several journalists from the United States to date. This group acts in contrast to the teachings of all substantial religions. It seeks to destabilise the fledgling democracy in Iraq.

President Obama has called the situation a potential genocide, and I do not think this terminology should be cast aside as some form of hyperbole. Time seems to erase, at least from our immediate memories, the horrors of the world that we have witnessed. When we search our memories, we recall some of these atrocities. I am very familiar with what happened in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge. I was in there shortly after that genocidal regime was deposed. And the Rwanda genocide: I witnessed many of the churches with ceilings shot out, many families that had been so terribly affected. And the Srebrenica massacre: I have been to that area of the Balkans. The list goes on. We lament what we have seen, but I have not seen, even among those situations that I have mentioned, anything as appalling as we are witnessing now.

The situation in Iraq is one in which we may, if the jihadists are able to go on unchecked, find ourselves lamenting very much our own failure to have done something to address it. We must not allow that to happen. The Prime Minister announced that Australians have been involved in providing humanitarian relief and logistic support. These requests have been met primarily through the work of the men and women of our Australian Defence Force, and for that we are very grateful. I firmly believe that no Prime Minister comes into office with a desire to send our Defence Force personnel into an overseas theatre of war to be at risk of potential harm. But there are times when this is absolutely necessary. The Prime Minister has acted only on the very best of advice, with the support of his colleagues in this place—perhaps except for the Greens. He has made a decision that would arguably come as one of the toughest that a leader ever has to face. I would stress that these decisions are not made lightly. The decision to commit our forces to this international effort has been backed by the United Nations chief, Ban Ki-moon, who has said:

… without addressing this issue through certain means, including some military and counter-terrorist terrorist actions, will just end up allowing these terrorist activities to continue.

I think these words should be heeded by us all. I know that there is some concern that any return to Iraq will see a long war without positive results. It may engender something even worse. I understand this concern, but I would note that, from the events that we have seen, this incursion is very different to the last time that Australian forces entered Iraq. I do not believe the world has ever seen an organisation before that has acted with such barbarism. Never before have we seen a group so cruel not only to its enemies but also to its own people. This is not a situation that the world has responded to in previous times. It is not a situation, in my view, that calls for a delayed response.

For the Greens to be suggesting that these are not terrorist acts and that we should find some other language is, I think, one of the cheapest political arguments that I have ever seen. It is quite deplorable. I find it difficult to understand. To date the Labor Party has been very strongly supportive of the measures that have been taken and of seeing the importance of us having a sense of unity in dealing with this absolutely appalling situation. No person in a position of responsibility could ignore the advice being received. The plight of those currently in Iraq demands our help. I think it should be offered. Australia has, as a strong and prosperous nation, a responsibility to help defend the defenceless. We must, as a nation that desires peace—a thriving democracy that is an example to the rest of the world—support other nations to grow in peace and prosperity, and to have the same tolerance and understanding of different people, different races and different religions in the way in which we, here in this country, appreciate. I do not think we can afford to falter on this matter. We cannot stand by idly on the sideline and lament another genocide.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the decision by the government to provide assistance in the fight against Islamic State. But I am disappointed that the opportunity for parliamentary consideration remains a fundamentally token gesture. We have had more than a decade to reflect on the folly of 2003. Yet nothing much has changed. The executive function of the Australian government should not be unfettered in this area of decision making. It is simply too complex and its consequences too serious for that to be the case. At this point, let me be clear, I do believe these circumstances, with Islamic State perpetrating atrocities in a widening zone within Iraq, raise a legitimate option of Australia's involvement in an international humanitarian response. But, there are two key matters that should be resolved every time there is reason for Australia to consider military involvement or action in circumstances where our security is not directly under threat.

The first is the question of the basis on which we are involved. For, clearly, Australia should not make a military commitment without a legitimate basis for doing so either in the form of a UN Security Council resolution or through an appropriately constituted request from the Iraqi government. There is no UN resolution on this matter, though I note the supportive statements from the UN Secretary-General on international cooperation to address the threat in northern Iraq. I am concerned, however, that there has been no apparent attempt by Australia, as a member of the Security Council, to bring this matter before the United Nations. As a country that played a pivotal role through Labor's Doc Evatt in drafting the UN Charter, which provides for the Security Council to have the primary responsibility for international security, and as a nation that fought so hard to have a seat at the table, it is surprising that we would not raise the matter in that forum for urgent discussion, if not resolution. I note that Don Rothwell, Professor of International Law at the ANU, has made comments this week to the effect that Australia, as a member of the Security Council, has a responsibility to address the council.

On the issue of a formal request from the government of Iraq, the conflicting versions presented by Iraq's ambassador to Australia in the last few days on this point are far from reassuring. The ambassador initially suggested that the delivery of arms to the Kurdish regional government was akin to a foreign nation supplying weapons to the Victorian government without the sanction of the national government in the case of a threat to Australian sovereignty. Later, he adjusted his position. In any case the analogy is valid, and it begs a sequence of questions about our involvement and its potential consequences. What are the possible side-effects of arming the Peshmergas in Kurdistan? Does this increase or decrease the likelihood of a stable and unified Iraq? Can we be confident that the supply of arms will not subsequently be the source of further conflict, civil war or atrocities?

The complexities of the situation in Iraq and the region are brilliantly described by Peter Harling in an article entitled 'IS back in business' in Le Mond Diplomatique this week. Surely, these issues deserve to be aired and examined more fully both within forums such as the UN and here in our own parliament. Yet, at present the community is being asked by the government to take these decisions on trust. Just look where that got us in 2003.

Finally, in terms of the basis for our involvement I acknowledge the doctrine of the 'responsibility to protect', which aims to save civilians from imminent genocidal danger in situations where their government is not able or willing to do so. This principle was explained in an article in The Australian on Tuesday by former foreign minister and former head of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans, who deserves significant credit for helping to achieve the unanimous adoption of R2P by the UN General Assembly in 2005.

Mr Evans observed that the generally accepted criteria for a military response in the context of R2P are the three elements: legality, legitimacy and likely effectiveness. He considered that the request of the Iraqi government was sufficient to satisfy the legality requirement in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution. He then noted the criteria for legitimacy and likely effectiveness as being that the seriousness of the atrocities that are occurring or are in prospect must justify a military response; that the response has a primarily humanitarian motive; that no lesser response is likely to be effective in averting the harm; that the proposed response is proportional to the threat; and that the intervention will be effective, doing more good than harm. Mr Evans considered that 'all these bases seem to be covered here'—a positive judgement to be sure, but also a rather tentative one. Mr Evans cautioned that it would be very difficult to make a case for Australia to do more, saying that to do so would be to take us back into uncharted waters, while to do any less would abdicate our common humanity.

I note too, the view presented in The Conversation this week by Kevin Boreham—a lecturer in international law at ANU—that, while humanitarian missions by the Royal Australian Air Force in Iraq are in accordance with international law, continued political scrutiny of further Australian military action in a highly fluid situation is wholly justified.

The need for continued political scrutiny is the second fundamental issue to be resolved when Australia considers its military involvements. I have consistently argued—including in my first speech to parliament—for parliament to have a properly structured role in any decision to send Australian troops to war in the absence of a UN mandate. Questions about the basis and extent of military involvement in the struggle against Islamic State and the possible consequences are being asked and debated across the world. Why are we not doing the same in the House of Representatives as a precursor to the commitment of military assistance rather than here in the Federation Chamber as an afterthought to that commitment being made? I do not advance these issues in the interests of nit-picking or nay-saying but in the interests of avoiding the serious and harmful mistakes that have been made in the past, most notably in 2003 and before that in Vietnam.

The courageous speech by Labor leader Arthur Calwell as Leader of the Opposition in 1965 when the government had made the decision to send Australian troops to Vietnam contained a cautionary message: 'When the drums beat and the trumpets sound the voice of reason and right can only be heard in the land with difficulty.'

In Tuesday's The Australian,Russell Trood, a former senator for whom I have great respect, suggested—and I acknowledge that this view is supported by the majority of my Labor colleagues—that the prerogative of Australian executive government, when it comes to making military commitments in the national interest, should effectively be absolute and that any form of parliamentary approval process would constitute an abdication of the natural authority of the Prime Minister and an outsourcing of the responsibility placed on a government by its electoral mandate. To my mind there are two issues with this argument.

The first is that executive power in our system of government does not exist separately from the parliament. Indeed, executive authority is effectively derived from and constituted by a workable parliamentary majority and is technically supplied by the recognition of that majority by the Queen's representative in the Governor-General. The majority is formed by members who are each elected to parliament in their own right and who each have the power of precisely one vote in the House of Representatives—including the Prime Minister.

The second is the idea that by winning an election—that is by having the support of enough members of the House of Representatives—the Prime Minister, with or without consultation involving her or his cabinet, somehow acquires the right to a species of executive power that cannot or should not be legislatively constrained or otherwise made subject to parliamentary process. In my view, that is a position without constitutional basis or logic.

Finally, I would note that the argument advanced by Russell Trood and his colleague Anthony Bergin, that parliamentary approval could be subject to the whim of minor parties, of course only applies if one of the major parties does not support military involvement. If this is the situation then perhaps the case for military action has not been well made out—as with Vietnam, and Iraq in 2003.

On the same page of the same paper, Gareth Evans, as mentioned earlier, gives his reasons for believing that Australia's involvement is right and that it is consistent with the responsibility to protect doctrine—again I do not disagree. But that is not the same thing as accepting that the Prime Minister and cabinet ought to make that judgement alone. Indeed in 2006, the UK House of Lords select committee, in a report titled Waging war: parliament's role and responsibility, concluded:

… the exercise of the Royal prerogative by the Government to deploy armed force overseas is outdated and should not be allowed to continue as the basis for legitimate war-making in our 21st century democracy. Parliament's ability to challenge the executive must be protected and strengthened. There is a need to set out more precisely the extent of the Government's deployment powers, and the role Parliament can—and should—play in their exercise.

This is not about abrogating the decision-making authority of the government of the day—it is about ensuring that our government, any government, makes the best and most responsible decisions, especially when it comes to life and death matters like this. The parliament is the most direct expression of the will of the Australian people and that fact should be honoured and respected.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to commend the Prime Minister for his passionate statement to the House on Iraq and Syria. I also praised the crucial work the Australian Defence Force is doing, along with other nations, to take a stand against the evil so-called 'Islamic State'.

Australia is working with the United States of America, Britain and France—at the invitation of the Iraqi government—to assist with humanitarian air drops and to help with logistical support, like delivering military equipment to Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State extremists.

We are morally obliged to assist the humanitarian needs of these persecuted people and it is in Australia's best interests to do so. In Australian newspapers we are seeing images of inconceivable evil—of children being made to hold severed heads, people being marched to their death and shot through the head and of people lying in pools of blood in city streets. We are seeing videos, like that overnight, of another journalist being murdered by Islamic State radicals.

I cannot imagine going through this terror, let alone seeing my family, friends or neighbours running for their lives. But there are people—like the tens of thousands of Christians and people from the ancient Yazidi minority—who are being forced out of their homes and into hiding in the mountains in the Kurdish region. They are in fear of their lives—terrorised by Islamic State extremists, who know no mercy. The Islamic State wants to wipe these people out. The women are being used as sexual slaves and the men are murdered on the spot—this is genocide and it is evil. These extremists conveniently and incorrectly use their Muslim belief to satisfy their own twisted urges of rape and murder.

I support the government's decision to provide humanitarian aid, because no-one should be subjected to the horror that is happening now. But this horror—this terrorism—is spreading. Previously, it has spread to the US with the destruction of the World Trade Center; we witnessed the London bombings and the Bali bombings; and now, about 60 of our own Australian citizens are fighting with Islamic State across Iraq and Syria.

As the Prime Minister said, the government is boosting counterterrorism funding by $630 million and updating our laws so they keep pace with evolving technologies and the developing threat. Over the weekend the Prime Minister confirmed that these resources will assist the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Office of National Assessment and the Australian Customs and Boarder Protection Service. The Prime Minister also confirmed that biometric screening is being rolled out and installed at all our international airports, and that the monitoring of the national security watch list will be boosted by the border force counter-terrorism units.

Yesterday in question time I asked the Minister for Justice how the additional funding for the Australian Crime Commission will assist in the fight against home-grown terrorism. He outlined how the range of measures were designed to tackle home-grown terrorism. I also support this governments new national security laws that will strengthen our ability to arrest, prosecute and jail returning foreign fighters.

Terrorism and extremists like Islamic State are not problems restricted to the Middle East. It has become our problem because it is affecting our way of life. Tougher antiterrorism laws mean data needs to be collected—our emails, phone calls and extra security at everything from airports to sporting matches.

I believe we must stay our course in defeating extremists like Islamic State, because terrorism and extremism cannot be fought with passive acts of humanitarianism. We have to be prepared, we have to be united and we have to understand that the threat is not mainstream religion—it is extremism that knows no bounds. These terrorists—these extremists—despise us for how we live. They have no freedom, no democracy and no unity. We do, and I am glad that we do. They are the strongest things a civilisation can have.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion of the Prime Minister, his speech and the support provided by the Leader of the Opposition in the main chamber.

It is very easy at this point in time in our history to wonder whether the world has ever been less stable. There is some weight in that question, with conflicts now raging in the Middle East, including in Iraq and Syria; a number of conflicts on the African continent; and what is developing as a state-on-state conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. And, of course, closer to home there are very significant strategic tensions in our own region.

But when we reflect on the 19th and 20th centuries we see a much more grave picture, with up to 40,000,000 lives lost during the 20th century—mainly in the first and second world wars but also in conflicts like in Korea. If you go back to the 19th century the list is very long—various revolutions and wars of independence: the Franco-Prussian War, the War of 1812, the Anglo-Afghan wars, the Anglo-Zulu War, the Sino-Japanese wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the Boer War and the Crimean War. The list is very long.

Thankfully, things have changed as we have made our way into the 21st century. I do not know that human nature has changed much, but certainly I think that we have matured as human beings. And we do have far more developed international and rules-based systems which help and guide us through periods of strategic tension and difficulty and, indeed, the outbreak of conflict. That is not to say that we can rest on our laurels. We have to be forever vigilant to ensure that we secure what I think the whole global community wants, and that is a peaceful world in which we can all live in peace.

So these are serious times, and Australia has to be very cautious about the role it plays as not only a middle power but a middle power which has quite successfully in recent years enhanced its role as an international player in the global community. We should tread very cautiously as we deal with each of these questions which are before us.

I think it is fair to say that there are number of questions we need to ask ourselves before committing ourselves to military operations: first of all, whether the action is supported broadly in the international community and, of course, whether the action is authorised by the host country, the country involved; whether that military intervention is likely to do more harm than good, of course; whether there is a responsibility to protect—that is, protection from things like ethnic cleansing and genocide; and whether it is likely that the failure to act will lead to a proliferation or spread of fundamentalism and acts of terror, including on our own shore. I think that in the case of northern Iraq, all those boxes are ticked and it is absolutely correct that Australia should be playing a part in an international coalition of forces to do all we can to secure our longer-term peace in that part of the world. Syria is a far more complex picture. Again, Australia will need to be very cautious about how it responds responsibly to questions which will inevitably emerge out of Syria.

Australia will have to be very careful about concurrency issues here. We remain involved in military operations in a number of parts of the world, including, still, Afghanistan; now northern Iraq; and potentially, if you can believe what the media is reporting today, Ukraine. Australia has a somewhat limited capacity. We are very fortunate to have one of the best defence forces in the world and I pay tribute to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force who, in any way, are already playing a role in some of these points of tension around the world or who will play a role at some point in the coming weeks and months.

But it is difficult for a small force like Australia to be participating in more than one operation, let alone three or potentially four operations. We do need to be cautious and we do need, collectively in this place, to commit ourselves to spending at least two per cent of GDP on our defence forces—at least two per cent of GDP—and do it more quickly than the current government currently plans to do. That is not a criticism in any sense; it is just a show of support from me, and I hope many in the Labor Party, that that aspiration is a very important one and one which we need to meet as quickly as possible.

I just want to say something else about Ukraine. Ukraine, on any measure, is emerging as a state-on-state conflict. And state-on-state conflicts are somewhat different from the humanitarian responses we are seeing typically now in Iraq. They are not counterinsurgencies per se, but a very different beast. Many Australians, quite rightly, ask questions about the merit of our participation in Afghanistan. I, as the minister at one point and, of course, in every position I have held in this place, have argued those merits. I think there were very solid reasons for us to be in Afghanistan, and I absolutely believe that we did the right thing to be participating in Afghanistan.

You can imagine the weight of the questions coming from people if we were to involve ourselves in what is effectively a state-on-state conflict so far from our shores and so far from our immediate sphere of influence, and you can imagine how weighty those questions would become if we were to lose more lives in Ukraine, which of course we have already so tragically done.

I want to say something about parliamentary authorisation of military operations. I reject it. We are a strong and robust democracy and we have strong conventions which remain unchallenged in this place with respect to these issues. The people who sit on our National Security Committee of Cabinet are duly elected people of the Commonwealth of Australia, in that sense expressing, hopefully, the will of the Australian people. They are people who have access to intelligence and other information, which of course is critical to making these very tough decisions—information which could not possibly be made available to members of the broader parliament, including the House of Representatives and the Senate.

I recall being at a meeting of NATO ministers in Scotland in very late 2007. These were ministers from so-called Regional Command South who used to meet as a bit of a caucus. I had the then Dutch defence minister ask me to face his cameras, which were parked outside the NATO headquarters, so that I could make an appeal to his parliament to reauthorise Dutch operations in Uruzgan Province, where of course we were a critical partner. I do not think that is a good process. I think we have to have trust and faith in our leadership to make the right decisions. Generally speaking, when the decisions are made correctly, they will typically have the broad support of the parliament, as I know this Prime Minister has with respect to Iraq.

We are not a member of NATO, nor should we be a member of NATO. We are happy to be a NATO partner, as we were in Afghanistan, where the merits present themselves. We need to be always demanding that when we are participating we are part of the strategic planning process, with access to all of the relevant information, but we need to be very cautious about how much we become engaged with NATO and their spheres of responsibility because here, close to home, we need to ensure that we do not take our eye off the very real strategic tensions in our own region.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Prime Minister's statement on Iraq. It is understandable that many Australians are apprehensive about the risk of becoming involved in another lengthy war in the Middle East. Indeed, as a mother of a son in the ADF, I share their concern. In this place we are all aware of the complexity and political danger of the situation in the Middle East. Any decision to become involved carries consequences. However, doing nothing also involves risks and consequences.

What we cannot escape, what we must acknowledge, is that what we are seeing at the hands of the self-styled Islamic State or, as our Prime Minister more accurately says, the death cult, is a level of barbarism and savagery that threatens every standard of decency. What we are seeing abrogates standards that civilised nations have accepted for generations. What makes this even more dangerous and shocking is the ease with which citizens of longstanding democracies built on a tradition of reason and mutual respect have transformed into brutal killers thriving on a blood lust that shocks us all to the core.

These savages proclaim that their wilful and calculated executions are done in the name of their god. Nothing could be further from the truth. But the dangers are real, not just in the Middle East but also here and in other democracies. Failure to confront these deranged people will haunt us into the future, particularly given the resources available to IS. As the Prime Minister said in his statement to parliament, doing nothing means leaving millions of people exposed to death, forced conversion and ethnic cleansing. This year, more than one million Iraqis have been driven from their homes.

We have now all seen, through the internet and on television, the beheadings, the crucifixions and the mass executions. Australia is working with our international partners to keep people safe abroad and at home. An air drop of food, water and hygiene supplies has been mounted in conjunction with American, British and French aircraft. This involvement has been at the request of the Obama administration and with support of the Iraqi government. There has to date been no formal request for combat forces and no decision taken to become further involved in the conflict. There will be no combat troops on the ground. What is happening currently is an intervention with the Iraqi government in support of the Iraqi government.

I am well aware of the dangers of war. I do not believe in simply rushing into battle. Any decision must be carefully and responsibly made. As always, in times of great danger, we turn to our men and women of the Australian Defence Force—brave Australians serving nation, serving us all. That is another reason why our response and that of the civilised world must be determined with care, and that is exactly what the Australian government is doing. The Australian government is not acting in haste. Decisions and their consequences are being carefully considered. Equally, we must consider the results of a failure to take action. The establishment of the so-called caliphate would shape the foundations not just of the Middle East but also of the world itself.

Australians of all faiths are shocked and horrified by the scenes we see from Syria and Iraq. They are witnessing actions that are totally contrary to our remarkable, inclusive multicultural Australia. We have every right to be proud of our nation. As English philosopher Edmund Burke said:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

We have a deep and abiding obligation to protect our nation, our citizens and our values from these brutal murderers who would destroy our way of life.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is one of the most serious matters that a government, a parliament and a population can be confronted with. Putting our forces in harm's way and getting involved in a war in another country has repercussions for the people who are involved, for the population and for the world more generally. Like, I think, everyone in this place and probably everyone around the country, when you witness the horrific images of beheadings and hear the plight of people trapped in remote locations in need of assistance and, just as we have had in the last little while confirmation that a second journalist has now lost their life in the most barbarous of circumstances, you wonder what to do. People look at this horror and this terror and wonder what should be to. That is precisely why we should be in this place having a full debate about how Australia responds, not as the screen here in the chamber suggested 'Statements by indulgence', as if the only basis that a member of parliament can contribute to this is with some indulgence and leeway but as of right. And we should be having a discussion that is not a non-binding discussion after the decision has been made, but a serious discussion in this parliament about what Australia's response should be. Having a debate in this parliament invites the Australian people and invites the government to hear the pros and cons and it forces the government, as we are not hearing now, to make its case for military intervention.

The government would have to show that any involvement in war in another country, on the other side of the world, would make things safer for Australia and safer for the rest of the world. That is not something that the government has shown so far. The government would have to demonstrate that getting involved by running guns for one side of the conflict—as this government is doing—and potentially even more, would actually make the region more stable, because when you look at the history of the last 11 years in Iraq you see that the evidence suggests the opposite. The evidence that suggest that military involvement from the likes of Australia has actually helped to destabilise the region. We were told back in 2003 that we were going to bring democracy to that part of the world through military invasion. We are told that military force would prevent these kinds of horrors from occurring. Plainly, that has not been the case. Even more recently, when Western forces assisted some of the groups who were protesting and fighting President Assad in Syria, we now know that some of the assistance that we provided, and the guns that we provided, to those groups are now being used by groups that are fighting alongside ISIL—so many reports claim. So we have to ask: are we about to repeat the mistakes of the past?

In a debate, the government would also have to explain what constitutes a successful mission. I have heard many, many answers to that. At what point will it be said that we have achieved the mission and the reason that we went there? Is it to stay there until these forces are defeated, so, potentially, several years? Is it until the people are safe? Is it simply to drop some guns and then come back? We do not know. That is a concern, because last week we were providing humanitarian assistance; this week we are running guns to one side of the conflict. Who knows what we are going to be doing next week?

The government would also have to come here and explain what the legal basis is for this intervention in another country. We had the astounding spectacle of the Prime Minister making a statement to parliament and then, within a few hours, the Iraqi ambassador coming out and saying, 'Actually, we don't support the Australian government supplying arms direct to the Peshmerga. It should come through the Iraqi government.' He then recanted a short while later. All of those things could be tested here. We could test the very serious issue of blowback, which many commentators have reported on. It is this: if Australia gets involved militarily on one side of a conflict somewhere else, will Australia then be seen as an enemy that is to be threatened in the same way that threats are currently happening? In other words, what would be the consequences for Australia's safety from getting involved? That needs to be brought out and discussed. If there is one lesson we can learn from recent history it is that military intervention is not a cure-all. The Greens supported intervention in East Timor. We supported the Australian involvement then because the case had been made and there was a very clear humanitarian objective an our doorstep. The case had been argued, and we supported it. So it is not a case of saying, 'Never, ever, should one get involved in a conflict.' It is a case of saying, 'When is the right time to do it?' and, 'Do it with your eyes open.'

There is an additional reason that this government should be far more transparent. We know that this government loves to turn human problems into military ones. We have seen that with its treatment of refugees. We know that this government loves to hide behind a uniform. So if the government wants to avoid the charge that some have made, that this is being done for domestic reasons rather than international reasons, then bring a debate to parliament and make the decision in the full glare of the spotlight of public opinion. Otherwise, Prime Minister, if you slip the switch to khaki all of a sudden, people are entitled to question your motivations if you are not being clear with the Australian people about how long we will be there, our purpose and the time we will exit.

It is distressing that, in the blink of an eye, we have gone to being involved in a war in another country. These questions of how to deal with the radicalisation of people, who may be Australian citizens or have a connection with Australia, is a very complicated one that we need to grapple with. We need to ask: does it stem from exclusion that people feel when they are here in this country? Does it stem from attitudes that people in Australia have to Australia's foreign policy—that is, do they see Australia getting involved in conflicts and backing one side over another and does that then force them to have less of an affinity with Australia? Does the move to switch to terror laws, which, in essence, are really about—despite what the Prime Minister says—picking a group of people and using them in public debate as a punching bag to make political points, have an effect?

I note that the leaders in the community in Victoria and in my electorate of Melbourne are grappling with these issues and the best way to deal with that is to have a genuine conversation. I do not have all the answers. I want to hear from people about how we stop this kind of radicalisation, stop people from being attracted to terror and stop people thinking that it is a good idea to go over and join ISIL. But if all we do is chest-beating jingoism we will miss out on the opportunity of having that nuanced and complicated discussion and cutting Australia's link to this kind of abhorrent radicalisation.

I am worried that this government has opened a door and that we are marching down a path to further and further involvement in a war. There is no clear end in sight.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to wholeheartedly support the Prime Minister's statement explaining the assistance Australia is providing to the people of Iraq, who are currently facing very grave danger from the brazen terrorists that call themselves Islamic State.

The Prime Minister was right to say that we should call this extremist group for what they are. They are not a state; they are not merely an alternative movement or a political voice. They are violent ideologues and they are terrorists of the worst order. The shocking images we have all seen over the past few weeks should be a wake-up call for the world. This brand of ideology does not share the common values that we do. Acts of beheading, crucifixion, the marching of unarmed people into mass graves to be executed represent a level of barbarism that is stomach churning.

The ISIL movement does not simply do evil; it boasts of evil, it is proud of evil and it advertises its evil in a way almost never before seen at any time in the modern world.

I know that, in this age of moral equivalence, some will argue that all war is barbaric. But the way these terrorists operate is far removed from the Geneva convention and its protocols—the recognised international law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects. The ideology behind the actions is abhorrent and centred on ethnic cleansing and genocide. The treatment of women, with thousands forced into sexual slavery, is reprehensible.

This is a level of evil that cannot be ignored. It is a conflict that cannot be put down to a regional skirmish or mere sectarian violence, particularly when this evil has recruited so many of its soldiers from around the world including from, sadly, Australia.

We have a moral responsibility to be united in our opposition to such evil. We have a moral responsibility to provide aid to those who are suffering and to assist those who are in the front lines fighting these terrorists. While we have not been asked to provide military or combat assistance at this time, our soldiers who are delivering aid certainly face grave danger. As a nation we all pray for their safety and we thank them for the duty they are carrying out in our name. I agree with the Prime Minister that doing nothing also involves serious risks and consequences.

I have to say I have been disappointed by the response of the Greens and others, who I feel once again let ideology get in the way of good sense and decency. The appalling attempt on Monday in the Senate to overturn convention and try to force a debate on the level of engagement our forces may have in this conflict was a cynical attempt at pointscoring. What is more, as the defence minister, Senator Johnston, pointed out, were we to debate what operational activities the Australian Defence Force would undertake it would be completely counterproductive to protecting those lives. This has never been done before in our history. We are a country that has never shirked its responsibility. The Prime Minister has outlined the criteria against which any request for military action will be judged, but of course we all hope that it does not come to that.

I wanted to finish today with the words of Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who said:

Right now, we currently have the chance to rescue people's lives and to hinder further mass murder in Iraq. Right now, we have the chance to hinder [Islamic State terrorists] from creating another safe haven. We must take advantage of this chance.

I support the Prime Minister's decision to act. I believe it is in our own national security interest to do so but, most of all, I think it is our moral duty and obligation as international citizens.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Albert Einstein was once reported as having said, 'So long as there are men, there will be wars.' It is a very sad indictment of mankind that that is the case, and certainly history will show that it has been the case for as long as history records mankind's life on this planet. It seems that the passage of time, the experience of past wars and even the significant advances in civilisation make little difference to the aggression mankind inflicts upon itself. It also seems that the only lessons learned from war are how to do it better the next time around.

Throughout my own life I can barely recall a period when in some part of the world people were not being butchered, brutalised or persecuted. It is a human trait that I have difficulty understanding. Every day news services report of the people being horrifically killed, wounded, mutilated, raped, tortured, enslaved or abused in some way. For all those people, even greater numbers live in daily fear that they or their family members may face a similar fate.

These events are occurring away from Australian shores right now, with many Australians relatively oblivious to what is occurring and getting on with a peaceful life here in Australia, completely in contrast to the lives of those people caught up in the midst of conflict. Yet those people are in reality little different to each of us, with similar human emotions, feelings and aspirations to ours. So whilst I have been fortunate to have been raised in Australia, and I have never been personally caught up in a military conflict, it does not take too much imagination to understand how horrific it must be.

Today the conflicts we are seeing are not so much between countries but between warring factions clashing in internal power struggles. Whatever the cause, the loss of lives, the suffering and the misery being inflicted on the innocent lives cannot and should not be ignored by those who know what is happening and have the ability to intervene. The nature of the intervention, of course, needs to be proportionate to what is required. Nor should we blindly take political sides. Rather, we should do what is right.

It seems from reports we receive that the aggressors in Iraq and Syria show no mercy but are driven by blind, violent ideology masquerading as religion. As we debate this statement, there are people in Iraq and Syria pleading for help, as there were in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, when about 100,000 of them were slaughtered whilst the world looked on.

When I attend the Bosnian commemorations of what happened in Srebrenica on 11 July 1995, the universal plea that I hear at each of those services is that such atrocities should never be allowed to be repeated. For Australia—and indeed any country with the ability to intervene—to stand by and watch the slaughter of others and do nothing would show that we place no more value on the lives of those being killed than do the perpetrators. My views are not driven by political ideology, political opportunity, political allegiance or hatred of any group, but by my deep concern for the lives of innocent, fearful and defenceless men, women and children who simply want to get on with their lives as we all do in Australia.

Of course, it will be said that Australia should have similarly intervened in many other similar conflicts. And perhaps Australia should have. I guess that historians will make that judgement, as we all can as well. But right now we are responding to what is happening in Iraq and Syria, as should all other nations that legitimately seek peace. For it will only be through universal condemnation of what is occurring that ISIS or similar organisations will ever be stopped. ISIS is not a democratically-elected body or an internal political force resisting its national government, but an international criminal organisation that is spreading its influence throughout the world.

Of course, the underlying question is, why is this occurring? What is ISIS's purpose and what is its ultimate objective? I do not believe that violence is the way to resolve differences, but there are lessons for all of us in what is happening in Iraq. We cannot ignore events of the past or of the present that have given rise to ISIS and driven their followers into their ideology. For if we do, it will be inevitable that, when this crisis has passed, a new crisis will emerge.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To speak in reply to the Prime Minister's statement on Iraq is something that we, as a federal parliament, have to do. It is probably not something any of us came here thinking that we would have to deal with in the way that this has evolved. It is more than anything I have known in my lifetime to realise that Australia can have its own psychopaths or whatever term you want to give to people that leave our country to join ISIS. I do not think that they are even as good as terrorists. Terrorists are obviously lunatics; people who just want to get their own way. But they actually have an aim. I do not think these people have an aim. I think that people who leave Australia to go and be involved in the sort of bloodbath that ISIS is involved in are people who have no aim. They are simply escaping from life. They have no life. They have no responsibility. They have no cause. This as an excuse to go and kill.

That anyone could take their children with them to a place like this defies imagination. I do not believe that anyone in this place does not realise what an incredibly good country we have. Anyone who has travelled around the world at all is well aware that, when they come home, they are in as good or in the best country of anywhere in the world. The fact that we can have, as has been stated, at least 60 people who have gone to get involved in this murderous rage—and we know that a lot of them, and perhaps the majority of them, were actually born in our country—I find frightening. I find this worrying.

We have a responsibility to deal with this that none of us ever envisaged. Anybody going to where ISIS is and indulging in that kind of frightening lunacy is going there to do something for which they have no responsibility. They are escaping from life and do not have a cause. To think that they are going to get used to doing that sort of thing, the murder, the beheadings and everything they are involved in—we know they are and we know some of them are leaders in it—and then return home and just quietly become ordinary citizens defies common sense. Every one of us in this place has a job to back our leaders and to come up with a solution as to how we deal with it. Maybe that means we have to curtail some of our freedoms to deal specifically with them. We have to deal with this because we cannot have people like that returning to our country. I think all of us have felt a sense of safety, even if we have not thought about it, because of the fact that we are one of the biggest islands or the smallest continents in the world surrounded by water. Now we are certainly very much part of the world that we do not want to be. I have no doubt that everybody in this place will combine to come up with the best way to handle this.

As I said, I do not believe this is terrorism. I think these are a bunch of psychopaths who are escaping reality. To think that somebody who was born in our country could be doing this beggars belief. The fact that they obviously have people behind them, supporting them and sending them over there says it is a bigger issue than just dealing with a few psychopaths going overseas who obviously at some stage, unfortunately, will return, or at least some of them will. I believe that our nation has always faced its responsibilities. This time it is not just the responsibilities we have for the world at large; it is very much a responsibility that we have to ourselves and to our own people.

We have to come up with a way to deal with this. It does not change the fact that we have a responsibility to preserve the dignity and the ability of people to lead ordinary lives in the Middle East, in the Ukraine or elsewhere, but this time it is more than that. It is about looking after our own nation. I found it the most sobering thing I have encountered in public life to realise that people who were born in my country could escape from it to go to less fortunate areas of the world simply to indulge in a murdering frenzy. The thought that they might bring that back here says that we all have an incredible responsibility to our nation to make sure that they do not get that opportunity. It is not easy as a nation, with the freedoms that we have, the laws that we have and the Constitution that we have, to deal with this, but deal with it we must. I know that all 150 people in this parliament will join together to make it possible to do so, because we must.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we all experienced on Monday, it was a very solemn day in the chamber as we discussed this issue. Just to echo the previous speaker's comments, I think at times like this we all question and, really, we look at the human race. It is my inherent belief that the human race is basically good, that we are good people and that we have loving and good thoughts about other human beings, but obviously there are in this world—and unfortunately there always have been—evil people. As to the genesis, the root, of it, who knows?

But there are evil people, and that is most unfortunate because it has coloured our history through the centuries and has resulted in some horrific wars and other things that we have had to get involved with.

What we are seeing right now in Iraq and obviously in other places around the world is that unfortunately, at the moment, the world does seem to be becoming a little more unstable than it has been in recent years. But, as the Prime Minister said the other day, doing nothing at the moment means leaving millions of people exposed to death, to forced conversion and to basically what is quite obviously ethnic cleansing. So far this year more than a million Iraqis have been driven from their homes, and we have seen that people and their culture—some of these cultures that have existed for millennia—are faced with extermination. The term that has been used quite often in the media and by other people is that a potential genocide is occurring.

We as a country have a choice. As people have said, as Australians we are apprehensive about how we respond to this. We can sit here and do nothing and be very sorry for what is going on over there. Or we can limit it—and at this stage it is limited—to aid. We have obviously done some humanitarian airdrops to people who have been trapped or besieged. This has been done at the request, as we know, of both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government.

It has been stressed also—and I think we really need to do this and we need to keep repeating this—that the target here is terrorism; the target here is not religion. People may do things in the name of religion, but they are certainly not representative of that religion.

A number of speakers have also mentioned the Australian involvement in this, in that we have Australian born citizens involved in this conflict in the sense of going over there and supporting this terrorist group. That obviously is of grave concern to us all and to the government. I would like to commend the Prime Minister and the foreign minister on their actions in not only this conflict but also the conflict that has been happening in the Ukraine: to be a voice of reason and a voice of good. But, with the Australian citizens' involvement in this, we have to look at this very carefully. Unfortunately, in many cases it has been reported in the press that this is often a younger generation whose parents are good people, whose parents are contributing to our community, whose parents are good Australian citizens. In many cases it is their children who have become radicalised and extreme in their behaviour.

So we as a community obviously have to take the measures that the government has taken. We have grown our own counter-terrorism funding and got some Australian authorities to increase their surveillance and their powers in trying to deal with people like that. And we are doing the positive as well. We need to engage every group in Australia and every subgroup. We have lots of subgroups for different members of different clubs and different things. We are going more into those groups and trying to engage those groups so we can work at this at both angles.

It is a very solemn thing to talk about. I commend the Prime Minister and the foreign minister on their actions in this conflict. I think it is the right thing for Australia to do that we help people who are basically at the point of a potential genocide and that we be on the side of good in trying to stamp out these extremists and radical people.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a fact that since 2003 the people of Iraq have been experiencing horrendous atrocities. As you will recall, in 2003, we—as part of the coalition of the willing—went into Iraq. And it appears that apart from removing Saddam Hussein, who was no doubt a particularly evil person, this engagement has led to the unleashing of various forces between the Sunni and Shiah which are irreconcilable and do not necessarily play just into politics but are now being played out in a very brutal and fanatical way throughout the Middle East. We have more recently seen the rise of ISIS, the Islamic State, which is clearly a fanatical and brutal terrorist organisation, extending beyond Iraq and into Syria, with the aim to effect in the Middle East an Islamic caliphate.

In my electorate, I have regular contact with many of the expatriates from Iraq—the vast majority of them are refugees. I meet regularly with representatives of the Iraqi Australian Christian Association, the Assyrian Universal Alliance, the Mandaean Australian community, the Syrian Australian national federation, the Assyrian Church of the East and representatives from the Caledonian Catholic community. Quite frankly, ever since I entered politics nine years ago, they have kept me up to date as to developments in the Middle East because they always have in their hearts the welfare of their loved ones, their family members left behind, and always express to me the need to provide for their welfare.

Over the last two months, the nature of our discussions have certainly been more stark. We are now seeing the threats played out on our television sets. Whether it concerns the Yazidi Kurds in Sinjar or the Christians in Mosul, we are seeing genocide being played out at an alarming proportion. Right before our eyes, we are seeing ethnic cleansing in Iraq. It is not just applied to the Christian minorities there; it is being applied to any there, including fellow Muslims, who do not share their ideology.

This is an issue where we do have a general responsibility and we do have, in my humble opinion, a moral responsibility. After all, we were part of the coalition of the willing in 2003. It cannot be a situation where we say this is a very, very unfortunate set of developments and simply provide humanitarian relief. It is a situation where we need to be involved and certainly providing humanitarian relief to those who are most in need at the moment, particularly the Yazidis up in Mount Sinjar.

Also, we need to be providing assistance to those who are prepared to stand up against this fanatical, brutal group of terrorists. In that regard, I am talking about the Kurdish Peshmerga military, which occupy the northern end of Iraq. They are doing a fine job in standing up to this advance by Islamic State. I know their losses have been high, but they are a committed military force and one which I think we need to be supporting. I do support the efforts of the foreign minister and the Prime Minister in indicating we will maintain humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq and additionally that we will provide military support for the Peshmerga in the form of arms and ammunition. That will enable them to fight for the people of Iraq against this blatant and evil enemy of humanity.

These are times when I think no-one in this place wants to be talking in a warmongering way, but they are certainly times when we need to reflect on what our responsibilities are as a country which is quite fortunate that we do not have these incidents being played out in our backyard. I agree with the government that we need to be taking every step possible to ensure that never becomes a reality.

Australia is a country which is very, very multicultural—I have just indicated that I have a significant proportion of expatriate Iraqi refugees living in my electorate. They are concerned not simply to bring more of their relatives to a country such as Australia; they are more concerned that we play an effort to settle down and establish normality in their homeland. I think that we do keep that responsibility and that it is only right that we do. As I indicated, as part of the coalition of the willing, I do not think the job was ever completely finalised—with Australia and the rest of the coalition of the willing withdrawing troops as we did; not that it was a popular war within Iraq. But what we are now seeing is something which is coming in to fill the void, a void which has largely been contributed to by a poor and inadequate government which was not inclusive of all peoples, by any stretch of the imagination. It has created a void for Islamic State to rise and fester. This cannot be, with the view of any degree of balance within the Middle East, allowed to succeed. It would be a calamity not simply for Iraq but for the whole region and, I would dare say, the globe.

For all of those organisations that I have mentioned, we will stay in contact with them. I know they are also talking directly to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and I do thank her for giving the time to actually sit down and personally meet with them. It is not that we can actually satisfy all of their concerns, but I think it is right that Australia does take these steps to address, as far as possible, the humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq and to also provide reasonable assistance in terms of military equipment and ammunition to the Peshmerga and the Kurdish military in their efforts, quite frankly, to stem this attempt to commit the genocide of an innocent people.

I will conclude my remarks now, other than to say that I think everything that I have heard in this debate so far indicates that, regardless of on what side of the House we sit on, we are at one on this issue.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Prime Minister's statement on Iraq and in support of the actions the government has taken in support of the innocents in Iraq. I also wish to acknowledge, as those of us on this side of the House should do, the very responsible position that those opposite have taken with respect to this most crucial national security matter.

The Prime Minister should be congratulated for his statement to the House earlier this week. It was appropriate, prudent and measured, and the members of our nation's national security committee also ought to be commended for the way that they are addressing this most difficult and complex consideration and task.

The threat we face is one neither of religion nor of race; it is a system of perverted beliefs and actions that lead to extremism and terrorism. As the Prime Minister consistently reminds us, these are the actions not of a state but rather of a death cult. We are witnessing a confluence of calamities in the humanitarian situation in the region and Australia's domestic national security interests.

The jihadist terror movement calling itself the Islamic State—which is reflective of neither of those two terms, of course, in any sense—is committing acts of such unrelenting barbarity upon the people of Iraq that Australia, as a responsible international actor, cannot ignore their pleas for assistance. Millions of people are being subjected to ethnic cleansing, forced religious conversion, sexual slavery and the denial of the most fundamental and universal of all human rights. We have seen a litany of atrocities including beheadings, crucifixions, mass murder and the corruption of children into this twisted movement of fear and hate.

Iraq is known as the cradle of civilisation, the source of some of the most celebrated and significant cultural and scientific advancements in human history. Indeed, it was the site of the Garden of Eden and of the Great Flood and was the birthplace of Abraham. Yet what we see today, on an almost daily basis, are the most savage and unrestrained acts of criminal brutality. We must do all we can to assist the victims of this savage and unrelenting campaign. Yes, these people are in a distant land, but our history from our inception has been one of acting globally to protect locally. Sixty Australians or more—it disappoints me to note—are fighting for the jihadists in Iraq and Syria, and they are supported by another estimated 100.

On September 11 2001, just 21 jihadists killed over 3,000 people and changed the course of history forever. We must not allow those who have revealed themselves to be agents of terror, accustomed to killing in the most brutal of ways, to return to our shores, take root in our communities and wreak havoc upon our country. We must take action to support those who, in defending themselves, are helping to defend us.

That is why I support the humanitarian airlift in Iraq and the military resupply effort. We are acting at the request of and in concert with our allies in the region and across the world—including the US, the UK, France, Canada, Italy and of course, and most importantly, the Iraqi government themselves. By undertaking this humanitarian action and by strengthening our national security arrangements at home, we are performing the first duty of government: the defence of the nation. The people fighting for the jihadists have rejected the fundamental beliefs of Australian society and, in my view, forfeited their right to enjoy our freedoms.

Australia is a land of tolerance. It is land of peace. It is a land of prosperity. It is a land of liberty. It is remarkable for its diversity, and it is enriched by the contributions of all those people who live on its soil. We must not allow this extraordinary achievement to be threatened by the evil intent of those who share nothing of our values and who wish to subvert our national way of life. I commend the Prime Minister's statement to the House.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also talk on the Prime Minister's statement on Iraq and Syria. Australians over recent times have watched the nightly news and have picked up the daily newspapers to see what the Prime Minister has called 'acts of pure evil'. We have seen the brutal, abhorrent and disgusting acts of what is, fundamentally, a large-scale, coordinated and organised death cult across northern Iraq and Syria.

While the spread of the influence of ISIS obviously represents a significant threat to security and stability in the Middle East, and particularly in northern Iraq and Syria, it also presents a very strong domestic security risk here in Australia. We know that there are about 100 Australians that are fighting with ISIS in northern Iraq and Syria. They are being radicalised. They are committing these terrible acts. And there is of course the potential for them to bring that mindset, that approach, and all the associated risks that go with that back to our shores and present a significant domestic security risk.

I strongly support the actions of the Australian government in northern Iraq. First and foremost, we are participating in a strong humanitarian program. President Obama said that the religious and ethnic minorities are facing severe persecution at the hands of ISIS, being forced to either convert or, effectively, be beheaded. Those religious and ethnic minorities in northern Iraq, as President Obama said, are facing potential genocide. Australian participation in the humanitarian effort has ensure that those people can survive in the meantime and, hopefully, at one point be freed from the persecution.

In the last few years I have been fortunate enough to spend some time with our men and women who serve out of Al-Minhad air base in the UAE, which is from where we have provided these humanitarian airdrops by two C130 Hercules. I have been on those Hercules with the aircrew. They are incredibly professional and dedicated service men and women, who always have the humanitarian mission at the front of their mind. They always have that compassionate approach at the front of their mind and do not think twice before putting themselves in harm's way. I commend them on the work that they have done on behalf of all Australians. We should all be proud of the effort they have done in delivering that humanitarian program.

I support the Australian government in any further actions that it might be taking to reduce the risk that ISIS poses in the region. We have provided logistical support to drop weapons to Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. I have been fortunate enough to visit Iraq as well. As people on the ground will tell you, the Kurdish fighters are some of the best fighters in the region. They are strongly rejecting the threat from ISIS and have had recent success in Mosul and other parts of northern Iraq in rejecting the threat that ISIS presents. I am proud to say that the Australian government is supporting them through logistical drops of weapons. I think that is an important part. Should our mission expand in concert with our allies with clear objectives and obviously with a clear humanitarian frame of mind and focus, the Australian government should take further steps, because, we as a first-world nation cannot stand on the sidelines and say that it is okay for these acts to happen, that it is okay for these acts to be displayed across our TV screens and newspapers. We have to rise to meet that challenge collectively with our allies. Should the United States as our principal ally, but also other allies in the region, request greater assistance from the Australian government I would strongly support such action.

I also strongly support the Prime Minister and the government in their recent measures to improve domestic security arrangements as a result of this threat. There is over $600 million for greater coordination of our security agencies in Australia. Through Operation Sovereign Borders we have seen what can be achieved when there is greater cooperation between our security forces. There is greater cooperation with United States in sharing information and there are also programs to stop the radicalisation of, particularly, young people in Australia, which is so important. We do not want this sick death cult and it is abhorrent mindset to set in with any Australians. These are strong measures to fight that clear and ever-present threat.

In conclusion, I am proud of the work of our service men and women in delivering our assistance in northern Iraq. I am proud of the work of the government, which is working with our allies to ensure that we can continue to have not only a safe and secure global community but also a safe and secure domestic environment in Australia. I commend the Prime Minister's statement to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the Prime Minister's statement on Iraq and Syria. Let us be clear, what we are seeing is terrorism. Terrorism is a force of asymmetric warfare, which is abhorrent to all Australians. Terrorism, as we are seeing, is defined by violent acts that create fear or terror. That is their intent. It is widely recognised that aspects of asymmetric warfare have existed throughout history, and there are numerous examples. However, this type of warfare induces increasing levels of violence just to wield power over people or regions, and that is exactly what we are seeing. The fact is it has now been brought much closer to the Australian shores, which is demonstrated by the very strong support that Australians are offering in actions overseas.

The Australian people have graphically witnessed some of the atrocities occurring in Iraqi and Syria and the tactics adopted by ISIL. They have been widely reported. There is no doubt that our hearts go out to the families of those involved in the recent beheadings of US citizens and we are seeing further threats to British citizens as well. You can only imagine what their families are going through.

These dreadful acts were outlined by Senator David Johnston in his speech on 1 September. He articulated the actions: the targeted killings, the beheadings, the forced conversions, abductions, trafficking and sexual slavery. These clearly demonstrate the power that terrorists wield over women and children in what they do and how they do it. More disturbingly, they have been using technology to basically promote their activities and for recruiting purposes. In short, they seek to create fear amongst populations and ingrain their extreme acts across the media.

We have taken action. I am very, very supportive of the actions that the Prime Minister and Australia are taking, because they are exactly what people in this country expect us to do. The Royal Australian Air Force delivered humanitarian aid to those trapped on Mount Sinjar as a result of ISIL. The Royal Australian Air Force offers a quick and ready response with a very limited footprint on the countries involved. We will provide weapons and logistical support to Kurdish fighters in their efforts to protect innocent civilians, including men, women and children, and provide much needed basic supplies.

The Prime Minister has made it very clear that Australia will not and will never tolerate this form of terrorism. We are assessing security threats all of the time and monitoring suspected members within Australia and their linkages to overseas partnerships. We have a very clear responsibility to the people of Australia and it is something that we take very seriously. This is exactly what Australians expect us to do in this circumstance. They have an expectation that we will do everything we can to protect them, and that is what this government is doing with the investment of $630 million to counter violent extremism and radicalisation and to boost our associated counter-terrorism agency capabilities. Of course, there is much needed investment in the safety of the Australian community. These agencies also need the jurisdiction to act upon information that is collected, and that will allow increased agency interoperability, which is very important in this process.

While we have deployed air assets, Air Force provides more than just transport and the delivery of humanitarian aid. It can offer control of the air and targeted strike capabilities, all done with a limited footprint on the ground. The government have thought very carefully about each of the actions we have decided to take. We are very mindful of any deployment of ADF assets and of course the ADF members who, as we all respect, put their lives on the line every time this parliament and the government make a decision.

Having spent a lot of time—as much time as I could manage—with Defence members in the Defence Force Parliamentary Program, I am always respectful of and have a great level of confidence in the training and the qualities of the people in our Defence Force. I also understand that they have families. I also understand the impact that the decisions we make has on those same families. However, each one of those members of the Defence forces, their families and every Australian expect us to take a firm stand on this and to demonstrate very clearly to those who are involved in this type of terrorist activity that this is not, and never will be, acceptable within Australia or anywhere in the world. We cannot stand by. We cannot stand by. Doing nothing is not an option. Doing nothing is not an option.

We know that Australia boasts a very rich blend of multiculturalism, and it has enhanced our country in so many ways. We live in a country that has not faced the atrocities that we are seeing in the Middle East, and we never want to. We never want to.

Moving on, this government has a direct responsibility to protect Australia, our people and our strategic interests both now and into the future. We want this legacy to continue for our children and their children, and as Australians we have the right—a very hard fought right—to the freedom of religion and speech and the freedom to live our lives as we want, based on respect and within the laws of our country. No-one has the right to threaten this or take it away, least of all those that we see active in Syria and Iraq—particularly those who are taught to kill anyone who does not agree with their beliefs. I support the Prime Minister's description of these as acts of 'pure evil', and I support the response of the Prime Minister and this government.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express my strong support for Australia's role in joining the multinational effort to help Kurdish fighters in Iraq. I have received countless messages and expressions of outrage from my constituents in my electorate of Hume in response to the atrocities in Iraq and, indeed, in Syria. In keeping with the instincts of most Australians, the action that is being taken by the Australian government is sending a strong signal to the Islamic State terrorists that we repudiate their barbaric actions. We repudiate the mass slaughter of innocent people, the enslaving of women and children, the torture of civilians and the unspeakable crimes that risk becoming genocide. That children are exposed to these depraved acts, and sometimes even recruited to participate, is an outrage many of us cannot get our heads around. Those living amongst this horror must be feeling indescribable fear. ISIS have shown again and again, and unequivocally, that they do not respect the sanctity of human life. In this lack of respect, they show that they have not even an ounce of moral compass, and they have no restraint.

While what is happening in Iraq right now is a world away, it is with us every day in images we see on the television and in social media. I think it is right that these scenes, as disturbing as they are, are published. It is important that we know what these barbarians are capable of. Nowhere has the lack of respect for life been on more repulsive display than in the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. All Australians—indeed all right-thinking people the world over—have been sickened and traumatised by these images. The Prime Minister's description of ISIS as a 'death cult' is apt.

There is much praise in the community for the strong stance the Prime Minister and the government have taken. Yet, understandably, there is also concern amongst some Australians about us overcommitting. The government acknowledges the spectrum of views. However, as Gareth Evans pointed out in The Australian on Monday, in the present circumstances the government is acting within clear principles of the international responsibility to protect people at risk of what the United Nations call 'mass atrocity crimes'.

In coming days, Australian aircraft will join an airlift of supplies, including military equipment, to the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. American, British, Canadian and Italian aircraft will also be involved. This involvement comes at the request of the Obama administration and with the support of the Iraqi government.

ISIS is not only a risk to the people living in Iraq and Syria, but to all western civilisations. As Secretary of State, John Kerry, has said of ISIS:

In this battle, there is a role for almost any country.

I am utterly supportive of our involvement; our country must be part of this repudiation.

It is very important to note that the international community's response, of which we are a part, is a response based entirely on humanitarian motives. There is clearly no other motive. Without Australia and other countries stepping in, all those who live in the path of these terrorists will surely die in mass slaughters or in ethnic cleansing or will be required to convert. In those circumstances the multinational response, of which we are a part, is entirely within the boundaries of international humanitarian law. The response is necessary and proportionate. While many are apprehensive about the risk of becoming involved in another conflict in the Middle East, to do nothing is indefensible. This is my strong opinion. To do nothing is indefensible.

I am grateful that it is also the opinion of the opposition. The Labor Party has supported the government and its response in a decent and constructive way. Australia will continue to work closely with its international partners to alleviate the humanitarian challenge in Iraq. There has been no formal request for combat forces and no decision taken to get further involved in the conflict.

The world knows that foreign fighters are now taking leading roles in the fighting in Syria and Iraq. The roles undertaken by extremist Australians are not insignificant. David Irvine, outgoing head of ASIO, has told us it now includes more Australians than any other previous extremist conflict. Some 15 Australians are believed to have died fighting for Islamic extremists during the current conflict in Syria and Iraq. And there are about 60 Australians fighting with the two principal extremist al-Qaeda derivatives: Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra.

ASIO also believes another 100 people in Australia are actively supporting these extremist groups from our shores. This adds a new dimension to our international responsibilities. Whilst these deranged people are a tiny minority, we need to acknowledge this new development. Australia, like many other countries, is now a recruiting ground for some of these terrorists. I fully support changes to our laws which will permit the government to deal with extremists who return to our shores with a commitment to violence and a hatred of us and our community. While the number of Australians of potential security concern to ASIO and our law enforcement partners has increased, we should not panic. But our specialist authorities need to be equipped with whatever they need to ensure the safety of every Australian.

However, it is incredibly important that we as a community understand that this tiny number of Australian extremists do not represent the many hundreds of thousands of wonderful Muslims living peacefully in and contributing fully to our communities, and who want for our country precisely what all of us want: peace, tolerance and safety. Muslims living in our community are to be protected and, indeed, nourished and supported by the rest of us. As they look on with horror at what is happening in Iraq and Syria, how lucky they must feel to be living in this wonderful country of ours. As a community, we must reach out to them, even enlist their help, in coming to terms with this new scourge in Iraq and Syria. We are all in this together.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Prime Minister's words. We are a country that has been built on a foundation of camaraderie and protecting our democratic rights to live as we please under Australia's laws. Our society does not condone murder and it does not condone sexual assault or slavery. It does not condone hatred based on race, sex or religion.

No matter what laws a country puts in place, the reality is that there will always be some form of violence and crime. The atrocities we are witnessing in Iraq, however, are beyond reproach. Many in this place, and those outside these walls, would not believe that the acts of genocide seen in Nazi Germany would be allowed to repeat themselves in the 21st century—yet, this is exactly what we are seeing in Iraq and Syria. I say 'allowed' because I do not accept that any Australian who believes in our democratic system would oppose assisting innocent civilians who are trying to survive increasing violence from a radical group—a group that I join the Prime Minister in condemning as pure evil.

The world condemned Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement, and today I join with the Prime Minister and our international allies in condemning the barbarism of the Islamic State—a group of extremists who are responsible for multiple massacres, suicide bombings, executions of prisoners, and the taking of innocent women and children from their homes to be used as sexual slaves.

All those in this place have seen the footage of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff being executed in the name of the Islamic State. There is not a strong enough word to describe my disgust for this extreme brutality. What members may not have seen, and if they have not I encourage them to do so, is a speech by an Iraqi Yazidi woman who broke down in the Iraqi parliament recently, calling for humanitarian solidarity and the end to the slaughter of her Yazidi people. She says: 'Our women are taken as slaves and sold in the slave market. We are being slaughtered. We are being exterminated. I appeal to you in the name of humanity to save us.' I ask: what kind of people would we be as Australians if we did not answer this call?

Although it may seem like Australia is a long way from these atrocities, I am proud to be part of a government that reflects our country's laws and morals not just domestically but also internationally, by assisting the estimated one million Iraqis who have been displaced from their homes as a result of this conflict.

I welcomed the Prime Minister's announcement that Australian aircraft would participate in humanitarian airdrops last month and today I welcome this government's further commitment to join with our international allies in airlifting supplies, including military equipment, to the Kurdish regional government in Erbil. Humanitarian airdrops were mounted in conjunction with American, British and French aircraft, and Italy has joined with these allies in airlifting additional military supplies. In this world there are appeasers and there are leaders. A leader is someone like our Prime Minister who stands up against barbarism, while those who oppose this call for justice seek only to poison and undermine the values of our nation.

When the Greens and animal activists witnessed cruelty against animals on their television screens, my office was bombarded with calls and letters condemning these actions, yet we stand here today with our screens plastered with images of beheadings, crucifixions and mass executions and these same people are either silent or, in the case of the Leader of the Greens, stand in this parliament to oppose Australia's involvement in ending these atrocities. To those people, I say to turn away from this brutality would be akin to assisting those who commit these heinous acts. I also question what message this sends to our RSL veterans and those who have laid their lives on the line for Australian values.

Today, the United States Vice-President, Joe Biden, added his voice to the calls for justice following the execution of Steven Sotloff and said the United States will pursue these killers 'to the gates of hell', and I hope they do. I not only applaud this sentiment by the Obama administration; I also join with my colleague the member for Fisher in supporting further action by the Australian Defence Force, if called on, to eliminate this threat.

I remind the House that the threat of terrorism has no borders and that it has already reached Australia's shores. At least 60 Australians are fighting with terrorist groups across Iraq and Syria, and about 100 more Australians are known to be funding or facilitating these groups. Just as this government has responded to the Obama administration's call for solidarity in responding to terrorist threats on the ground, we have also taken swift action to respond to the home-grown terrorism threat that we are faced with. We have committed an additional $630 million over four years to counter-terrorism measures to strengthen our borders, bolster our national security laws and increase our emphasis on preventing Australians from becoming involved with extremist groups through engagement programs. We are also responding to the threat from those Australians who have taken up arms in Syria and Iraq and who attempt to return to Australia by cancelling the passports of all those who are assessed to pose a threat to our national security.

Yesterday the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, called for all sides of Australia's parliament to support the government's efforts to respond to this global terrorist threat. I recognise and thank the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues who have joined with the government in condemning these acts and have supported the assistance Australia has provided to date. I particularly recognise recent comments made by the member for Holt in this place when speaking on a motion by the member for Cowan in support of increased national security laws to help combat the threat of terrorism. As the member for Holt stated:

One of the grave concerns I have had as a member of the security committee since 2005 and occupying the national security space since 2005 is that eventually and inevitably in this country an event will occur on this soil of the magnitude of the Bali event—or just a terrorism event.

He went on to say:

…in some occasions, through some sections of the media and some sections of the commentariat, there is a belief that discussions about the liberties of those who might be impacted on by proposed laws in this place and proposed laws to come, but there is not a discussion about the threat that is posed to Australian citizens now and in the future.

A sentiment I fully support. We must always take a considered approach when responding to international conflicts while balancing this with the need to respond swiftly to atrocities. No-one in this place wants to look back in years to come and question whether we could or should have done more to stop these deplorable acts, and no single country or organisation can handle this international terrorism threat alone. I also want to remind the House of the statement by the member for Fisher, when he said:

The Western world stands at a crossroad. Now is the time for us to act decisively, to act with strength, to act with commitment and to act together. That is the way we will protect our values. That is the way we will protect Australia,, and nothing less will do.

Another sentiment I support fully from the member for Fisher. I am proud to be part of a government that recognises the need to respond to this threat and will stand in solidarity with our international allies. Australia is a country of privilege, and with privilege comes responsibility. We have a responsibility to protect all Australians from violent extremism. We have a responsibility to reach out and protect or assist all those who are unable to protect themselves, and we have a responsibility to help end this suffering—a responsibility that, I am pleased to say, this government will meet head on.

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

I rise to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister and express my appreciation that this motion has been supported by the opposition as well. Over the last 24 years, since the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, there has been an almost continuous presence of Australian Defence Force personnel in the Middle East. There have been high profile conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it may not be appreciated by the public that there has been almost a continuous presence of an Australian warship in the Persian Gulf since September 1990. Recently the Royal Australian Navy sent its 54th deployment of a warship. The role has changed over time, from support during the first Gulf War, monitoring sanctions against Iraq, and support later during the Iraq War. Defending the oil platforms has now moved to a maritime security, narcotics, counter-terrorism and counter-piracy role.

I was fortunate enough, with a number of other members of parliament, to visit the Middle East area of operations four months ago. I want to pay tribute to the men and women of Joint Task Force 633 and the work they are doing in maintaining security. One of the common things that I would hear is they would ask the members of parliament: 'Can you remind people that we are still here?' I think people thought after the closure of Tarin Kot in Afghanistan that Australia had really wound down the number of people in the Middle East. But there are still more than 1,000 young Australian men and women who are serving over there. We saw the C130 delivering humanitarian supplies to avert a humanitarian disaster at Mount Sinjar and Amerli. What we have seen in Iraq since the start of the year, with more than one million Iraqis being displaced, has been a tragedy and a potential genocide.

I support very much the actions of the Australian government in concert with our allies, the United States, and with other NATO countries. At the same time that we are considering this motion it is worth remembering that Australia has been recognised—not being a NATO member state—for partnership of NATO due to our contribution in Afghanistan since 2001 and the close way in which we cooperate with NATO nations.

I fully endorse the criteria that the Prime Minister has enunciated for the test we should apply if there is any request for military action. The request would come from the United States and would have to be supported by Iraq. The four criteria that the Prime Minister has enunciated are:

Is there a clear and achievable overall objective? Is there a clear and proportionate role for Australian forces? Have all the risks been properly assessed? And is there an overall humanitarian objective in accordance with Australia’s national interests?

At the moment, Australian and the Royal Australian Air Force with their C130s and C17s are playing a useful role, firstly, in delivering humanitarian supplies and, secondly, in delivering military support to the Kurdish regional government in Erbil with the support of the national government of Iraq.

Again, I fully endorse the formula that the Prime Minister has used to re-emphasise that the threat is extremism in any form. It is of great concern that we have living amongst us in Australia people who are prepared to go and join the murderous forces of ISIL. I fully endorse the additional measures that have been taken at Australian airports to ensure that this does not occur. We have seen recently just what ISIL is about. The horrific footage of the murders of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff remind us that this is not an Islamic state but a death cult. Unfortunately, we in the parliament need to be prepared to face in the future an uncertain world and an uncertain Middle East. I endorse the motion that is before us and pay tribute to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force who are putting their lives on the line.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.