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

Today I was pleased to co-host, together with the member for Denison and Senator Scott Ludlam, a book launch organised by Australians for War Powers Reform. The book, titled How Does Australia go to War? edited by Dr Alison Broinowski, is dedicated to Malcolm Fraser, who wrote the preface in February this year. It is an important book at a critical time, containing contributions from a range of experts in policy and government. The book looks at how Australian governments exercise war powers and it makes an irresistible case for legislative change to ensure that Australia does not commit troops and arms to war in future without a proper process.

I understand that every member of parliament will be receiving a copy of the book. I am grateful for the efforts of the Australians for War Powers Reform, including Paul Barratt, the president and the former Secretary to the Department of Defence; Dr Alison Broinowski, the vice-president; Dr Sue Wareham, Pera Wells, Kellie Merritt and Dimity Hawkins, as well as the many others who made contributions to the book.

I mentioned the need for a war powers act in my first speech in this place. Indeed, I have supported the idea since 2003, when, as a UN staff member working in the Middle East, I watched, horrified, as Prime Minister John Howard eagerly dispatched Australian troops to be part of the invasion of Iraq—an action that the majority of the world regarded as illegal and certainly disastrous. Subsequent events have borne that out. And we now find ourselves back in the quagmire we helped create—and still all on the say-so of only the Prime Minister and the cabinet, as an exercise of outdated, leftover royal prerogative powers—is deeply disturbing.

Our current engagement in Iraq has followed the pattern of recent military excursions occurring as a result of a decision by the executive without due consideration by the parliament. At the time of the announcement, there was also no clear basis in international law for the commitment. As a member of the Security Council at the time, it is striking that Australia did not seek to raise the matter in that forum.

Our current engagement also follows the pattern of moving swiftly from a questionable premise to a larger, more expensive and more fraught involvement—without the addition of any better analysis or clearer 'mission scope' along the way. For example, in response to the recent failure of the Iraqi army in the battle for Ramadi, the Prime Minister suggested Australia should consider doing a lot more than simply providing training and assistance. As in a range of domestic policy matters, the Abbott government is seeking to create and exaggerate a sense in which the conflict in Iraq and Syria is some kind of real and pressing security issue for Australia. In late May, the Prime Minister said:

The serious setback in Ramadi just emphasises how challenging the task is and how necessary the task is.

If anything this should cause us to be more committed, not less committed, to the task ahead because this conflict in the Middle East is not just something that's happening thousands of miles away.

This fight is reaching out to us, and we might wish it were not so, but we have no choice in this matter.

This final statement is wrong in both its parts. The fight in Iraq is not reaching out to us, except insofar as we inspire the recruitment of foreign fighters and terrorists by our ill-considered interventions. And we absolutely do have a choice in this matter. It is a choice that should be considered and resolved more carefully than our current decision-making process allows. There is no doubt that our involvement in Iraq is sliding down a dangerous slope. When the Prime Minister uses a military failure to justify further and more risky military involvement, it is clear that circular reasoning is at work. Already there has been considerable slippage. Already the Prime Minister's rhetoric is suggesting we will need to make a larger, longer, more directly involved commitment of military personnel.

In 2003 we went to war in Iraq for an ever-shifting list of reasons, all of which were contested by members of the public and by some parliamentarians who were not part of the Howard government but none of which were properly considered by the Australian parliament and, as we now know, none of which turned out to be true. In terms of our current involvement in fighting in Iraq, there is nothing about the recent process—if it can be called that—that militates against making the same kinds of mistakes. Nobody is really sure what our objectives are. There is no time limit on this military adventure, nor is there a limit on the scope or type of involvement.

It may be that the Australian public is to some degree numb when it comes to the deployment of our military overseas, aided no doubt by the fact that war these days can often be waged from a distance—from a plane, a drone or even from a military base thousands of miles away. Whereas countries like the United Kingdom have learned from the folly of Iraq in 2003 and introduced reform to allow greater parliamentary debate and scrutiny, we have continued to muddle along with a demonstrably lower-quality and lower-integrity approach. A properly framed War Powers Act would allow greater public engagement on the grave question of military involvement and it would provide greater transparency about the reasons and terms on which Australia goes to war, especially when there is no direct threat to the Australian territory or its citizens. It is an improvement to our system of government that is long overdue, and I thank all the members of Australians for War Powers Reform and the late Malcolm Fraser for their efforts in this cause.