Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the strong historic relationship that exists between Australia and the United States of America;

(2) acknowledges the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty, which for the past 65 years has provided for our mutual defence, anchored regional stability, and spurred economic growth;

(3) notes the many ties that bind our nations together, in areas including:

(a) intelligence and law enforcement, where information sharing and coordination are at all-time highs, which has led to the prevention of far more terrorist attacks than have occurred;

(b) security cooperation, in which Australia has made valuable contributions in the past 15 years to the United States-led campaigns against terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and across the Middle East, noting as well that the United States Force Posture Initiatives in Australia, launched in 2012, have and will continue to enhance the readiness and interoperability of our militaries;

(c) trade, with the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement in particular having expanded the flow of fair, free, and high-standard trade between our countries for 12 years;

(d) investment, recognising that the United States is Australia's largest foreign investor, and the top destination for Australian investment, with mutual investment by the United States and Australia in each other's economies having grown to nearly AUD$2 trillion; and

(e) political engagement, including the frequent exchange of politicians, officials and dignitaries between our nations, recognising in particular that over the last three years alone, the President, Vice President, and half of the President's cabinet has visited Australia, as well as more than 100 congressional delegations and prominent United States governors; and

(4) affirms that our nations' mutual and long-standing commitment to freedom, democracy and the pursuit of happiness will continue to guide and shape our relationship into the future, through both challenging and prosperous times ahead.

Australia and the United States of America share much in common. We are two of the world's oldest continuous democracies. We share the same language, cultural heritage and trace many traditions back to the little island of the United Kingdom. But we are not of the old world; we are of the new world and, like our wines, we are bold in character. The migrant story is an important part of both of our national histories. We have overcome geography and built strong civic societies from very diverse populations.

Australia and the US have grown close over 230 years, yet our early interaction was incidental. In the 19th century, US ships sailed from Boston filled with ice through the tropics to Melbourne where the remaining ice was dispatched to hotels and dining rooms as a luxury—probably in the seat of Gellibrand. The American motor car arrived here in 1908, and in the same year President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet came alongside ports in Sydney, Melbourne and Albany. Australia for the first time witnessed America's dormant military power. Car assembly plants were set up by Ford in Geelong in the 1920s and General Motors Holden in Port Melbourne in the 1930s. This hinted at America's industrial capacity.

Sport drew us together. The first African-American, Jack Johnson of Texas USA, won the heavyweight boxing world championship here in Australia at Rushcutters Bay in 1908. World War I brought us closer still. We fought alongside US troops at the Battle of Hamel in 1918. Australia's Sir John Monash led both Australian and American soldiers to a great victory against the Germans there. Our leaders locked horns at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Prime Minister Billy Hughes demanded heavy reparations from Germany; President Woodrow Wilson did not agree. Hughes pushed back with:

I speak for 60,000 Australian war dead. Who do you speak for?

Wilson later spoke of him as a 'pestiferous varmint' in a way that only friends can.

It is no surprise, then, that President Trump sensed a brawler on the other end of the line when speaking with our Prime Minister last month. Our deep ties allow a frankness that we do not share with other nations, but our strong modern partnership—built on security, trade, investment—did not occur on its own. Events shape history, and the Second World War has done more than anything else to shape our relationship with the United States. It is a telling footnote of history that Canberra had no ambassador in Washington until 1940. The Battles of Coral Sea and Midway in 1942 laid the foundations for 75 years of cooperation between our two countries. The US Navy sent Japanese imperial ambitions to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, thus securing Australia's lines of trade and communication. We shifted our gaze from Britain to the US as our most important security partner, and that relationship was forged on the battlefields of the Pacific theatre and continues today. On a personal note, I am only able to give this speech because a US medic and surgeon saved my grandfather's life after he suffered a terrible gunshot wound aboard a Catalina conducting an air sea rescue mission on 31 March 1945.

ANZUS underpins our security cooperation, regional stability and our economic growth. It has done so for 65 years. We are a critical ally to the US in the Asia-Pacific region. Our military, intelligence and diplomatic support are vital to US engagement in the region. The US is Australia's largest foreign investor; US investment accounts for 23.6 per cent of total foreign investment stock in Australia. Mutual investment in both our economies has grown to nearly A$2 trillion. The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement is at the heart of our economic independence. The Fulbright Program grows our future leaders, with Australians able to study at great US universities.

But the Australia-United States relationship goes deeper than just security, economics and cultural exchange. We are both democracies. We believe that people should elect their own governments and that those governments should be accountable to the people. We believe in the separation and diffusion of power. We believe in limited government and protecting our people's economic, political and religious freedom. In short, we share common values and a common vision of a good life. This is why we are friends and this is why our friendship with United States will endure into the future.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canning for bringing this important motion to the House. I want to start by stating something that I am sure that every Labor speaker will reaffirm—that Labor well and truly supports the alliance. In fact, we are proud of the alliance. I want to spend my time reflecting on the coalition's approach to this alliance, because I think that is where fruitful discussion can be had. My premise is that the coalition has fundamentally misunderstood the nature of this alliance and that that is reflected in some disastrous foreign policy decisions.

I am proud of the alliance because the alliance really started under Labor, with this quote from the greatest Australian Prime Minister ever, Prime Minister John Curtin, who stated in 1941:

Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.

No truer word could be spoken by Australia's greatest Prime Minister. This was in the context of him taking over from Prime Minister Menzies, a man who spent four months in the United Kingdom in the darkest days of World War II and who had repeatedly failed to stand up Winston Churchill—something no-one could ever accuse John Curtin of. In fact, John Curtin famously stood up to Churchill and insisted on the return of the 9th Division of the AIF from the Middle East to Australia—

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the 7th.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the 7th—thank you. He stood up for that, instead of Churchill insisting on it being sent to Burma, where it would have been captured along with a lot of other troops.

So Labor is proud of the alliance. But being a good friend, as Australia is to the United States, requires honesty and respectfully disagreeing when we believe that they are making poor decisions around foreign policy. That stands in stark contrast to the coalition, who have repeatedly followed the United States into poor policy decisions. The most noticeable was Vietnam, where 521 lives Australian lives were lost. We had a generation were scarred and betrayed. We had billions of dollars of wasted taxpayers' money, and all for what? A false notion that somehow being a good alliance member meant following United States into Vietnam on a lie. There have been extensive records kept about how South Vietnam did not request these troops. It required a lot of engineering from the Australian government, in conjunction with the US government, to basically compel the South Vietnamese government to request these troops. That is a great tragedy. The alliance did not require us to enter Vietnam, but Prime Minister Menzies and then Holt obviously disagreed.

The second instance of where the coalition government misunderstood the nature of our alliance and our strong friendship with United States was in the second Iraq war, where Prime Minister John Howard wasted over $2½ billion of taxpayers' money on a lie—a lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that somehow required Australian intervention alongside the United Kingdom and the United States.

This is not about Labor or Liberal, because the British Labor government was wrong as well. We are reaping what was sown in that conflict. We have troops now risking their lives in Syria and northern Iraq because of decisions made around the second Iraq war. Lives have been lost, we have seen more than $2½ billion dollars of taxpayers' money wasted, and we have millions of people currently in the middle of a war zone because of the destabilisation that occurred during that period.

I do not say these things lightly. I do not say them to score cheap political points. I say them to make the point that friendship, supporting an alliance, requires honesty. That will be tested in the next four years, I fear. Respectful disagreement is the subject and the inherent essence of friendship. I am urging the coalition government not to follow any more follies of any US government, to stand up where it is required, to support where it is justified and to be, above all, good and honest friends. I thank the member for Canning for bringing this motion to the House. I reaffirm my deep commitment and the Labor party's commitment to the alliance and I look forward to the continuing debate.

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion and the 65 years of the ANZUS Treaty between the United States of America and Australia, a friendship between our nations that is measured by far more than the 6½ decades that have passed. We are allies, partners and friends. We share fundamental values. We share a high level of trust built with decades of close cooperation. With ever-shifting relationships around the world, it is so important to respect our longest standing ones.

The alliance of our nations provide for our mutual defence and regional stability and, importantly, extends to trade, investment and economic growth for both nations. The US is Australia's largest source of foreign direct investment, at some 23 per cent. US is also our second-largest trading partner in terms of goods and services. At A$800 billion, US foreign investment in Australia is nearly double that of the number two investor, Japan, another of Australia's regional neighbours and friends.

As members on both sides stand in this place to speak to this motion today, the friendship between the United States and Australia has never been stronger. Following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, President Trump and Prime Minister Turnbull reaffirmed the US-Australia alliance and the commitment of our countries to have cooperation on a growing list of global challenges. Over the last three years alone, the President, Vice-President and half of the President's cabinet have visited Australia. More than 100 congressional delegations have travelled to meet with us. There have been more than 500 visits to Australia by senior US defence officials. Similarly, Australia's parliamentary leaders, departmental officials, and our serving men and women have visited the US to further our nation's engagement with our closest ally.

Ours is an alliance of true friends who share common values and whose interests overwhelmingly align. We share democracy and an independent judicial system, both nations fight with every breath to defend freedom of speech, and our citizens are free to make their own decisions without fear of imprisonment or bloodshed. We are innovative nations and we champion enterprise. Our nations are strong foundations for those that want to apply their own effort and achieve their every potential for their family, for their community, for their business and for our countries. This is why we are committed long-term partners.

Australia has fought beside the United States in every major war or conflict since World War I. In 2018, on 4 July, Australia and the US will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Hamel. This battle was the first time US forces were placed under the command of another nation. Australia's General Sir John Monash led the US 33rd Division in its first action in that war. The Allied victory owed much to Monash's detailed planning. The US-Australia cooperation quickly overran German positions and took 1,000 prisoners.

Australian and US defence forces remain deeply integrated. We work closely with the United States on counterterrorism in South East Asia. Our forces have strong links in the coalition as we fight against ISIS. Our special forces personnel have played key roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our intelligence agencies work at the highest level of cooperation.

I speak in support of this motion and I also speak in tribute to my friend the member for Canning who moved it. His commitment to our country as a member of the Special Air Service Regiment is a sacrifice few Australians make to serving our country and our military. He knows very well, personally, the importance of our alliance with the United States, the strength of our shared fundamental values and the personal sacrifice it takes to build peace, prosperity and democracy in the face of radical and ideologically opposed enemies. He knows the deep trust and friendship of the alliance from serving alongside US defence personnel.

Prime Minister John Howard, at a reception on the occasion of the 50 years of the Australia-United States alliance held at the Sydney Opera House, recalled Sir Robert Menzies to illustrate the strength of the relationship that exists between Australia and the US. When Menzies—who was Prime Minister of Australia when the ANZUS treaty was signed—retired in 1966, he was asked at his final press conference to nominate his greatest accomplishment in government. Without hesitation, he said it was the treaty between the United States, Australia and New Zealand, signed in 1951: the ANZUS treaty. I share this commitment to our US ally, our partner and our friend.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 27 December 1942, one of our greatest leaders, Prime Minister John Curtin, surveyed Australia's precarious strategic position in the face of Japanese advances during the Second World War and told the Australian people:

Without any inhibitions…I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.

Australia's conservatives reacted to this statement with horror, with the then Leader of the Opposition, Billy Hughes, declaring that it would be 'suicidal and a false and dangerous policy' for Australia to orientate itself away from the United Kingdom. Despite this instinctive conservative fear of change, Curtin's famous declaration became the foundation for a successful defence of Australia in the Second World War and 65 years of security partnership between Australia and the United States in the form of the ANZUS alliance.

ANZUS has endured because it is founded on shared values, interests and respect at multiple levels between the Australian and the American people, demonstrated by the fact that Australia is the only country in the world with a positive net migration flow from the United States; between our businesses, Australia's second-largest two-way trading relationship is with the United States; and our defence forces have served side by side in conflicts across the globe. The United States has been a champion of the rules based international order that has emerged since the Second World War, and this has been overwhelmingly in Australia's interests.

However, this relationship between Australia and the United States is receiving renewed scrutiny in this country in the wake of the election of the Trump administration. Indisputably, the Trump administration articulates a very different vision of the role of the United States in international affairs than any before it. I fully expect that there will be robust disagreements between Australia and the United States in the coming years. I have already spoken in this chamber about my disagreement with the administration's so-called Muslim ban—a ban that, in my view, is not in the security interests of Australia.

However, the great strength of the ANZUS alliance, as a mutual self-defence treaty, is the freedom it gives the participants to independently determine their own interests and commitments within the alliance. This has allowed the alliance to evolve within dramatically changed regional strategic circumstances. We can disagree without trashing a decades-long relationship that is far bigger than any individual. Just as Curtin stood up to Churchill to demand the 7th Division be used in the defence of Australia in engagements like Milne Bay and Kokoda, rather than in the prosecution of imperial aims in a futile campaign in Burma, so too can Australia exercise independence within ANZUS. The ALP exercised independence of this kind when it refused to support the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003—a position that has been vindicated many times over in the decade that has followed. We will need similar independence of thought in coming decades.

Australia is currently experiencing the greatest change in our strategic environment since the arrival of the First Fleet. The era of benign US hegemony in our region is waning and the Indo-Pacific is moving rapidly towards a multi-polar security environment. In recent years, China's economic growth has been accompanied by even more rapid growth in its military and it is now the second-largest defence spender in the world by some margin. Other nations in our region have responded in kind and, as a result, Asia has collectively outspent Europe on defence each year since 2012.

Neither reflexive anti-Americanism nor sinophobia offer Australia a path forward in this increasingly challenged security context. Instead, we will need to do the heavy lifting of forging a sophisticated strategic policy that leverages our alliance with the United States while also deepening our capacity to advance our own interests within our region. I have said before that this should mean that we pursue an international strategy that seeks to build expertise in South-East Asia as an urgent priority and as the basis for our future engagement with China, the United States and the broader region. Unfortunately, we are not well prepared for this new world. Australia currently has the thirteenth-largest military spend in the world, and the fifth-largest in Asia. But we are a small fish in a big pond. We have a large landmass and even larger strategic interests to defend. An adequately resourced Australian Defence Force is the price tag that we need to pay for an independent Australian foreign policy—the national asset that underwrites our ability to say 'no' to powerful allies and neighbours when we need to. It will only become more important in future years.

Similarly, Australia's diplomatic corps is small by international standards. It is the smallest in the G20. We are rapidly losing the South-East Asian capability that we established in the Public Service and academia in the 1990s. Asian language study, the foundation of understanding and engaging with our neighbours at the level of sophistication required to pursue complex strategic aims, is in freefall. To take just one example, there are currently fewer Australian high school students studying Bahasa Indonesia today than there were under the Whitlam government. There are just 588 in Victoria, 186 in New South Wales, 47 in Queensland and 48 in South Australia. More universities in Germany teach Bahasa Indonesia than in Australia.

Yet, in response to appeals that Australia focuses on building more security with Asia, we hear the reactionary cries from the conservatives that echo the change expressed by Billy Hughes in 1942.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the service and commitment of my friend, the member for Canning, to his country through his service in the SAS. And I acknowledge him for bringing this motion today.

Australia's historic and continuing links with the United States are well known to many of us. It was the United States, not Great Britain, that came to our aid in World War II when our country was under grave threat of invasion by the imperial Japanese forces in 1942. That brave decision of the then Labor Prime Minister John Curtin was the turning point in our relationship with the United States—a relationship that has since stood the test of time. Make no mistake about it, but for the intervention of the United States in defending the Pacific and northern Australia the war may have taken a very different turn.

As this motion rightly points out, the links between our nations in defence, intelligence, trade and investment continue to be strong. Our relationship with the United States is central to our security and prosperity now and into the future. The Turnbull government should be commended for recognising the importance of this relationship and for taking action to keep it strong. As has been widely reported, the Prime Minister took the initiative following last year's presidential election and was among the very first world leaders to speak to the new US President.

The actions of Prime Minister Curtin and, more recently, Prime Minister Turnbull are in stark contrast to the reckless and irresponsible attitude of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition called the policies of the US President 'barking mad' and declared him 'entirely unsuitable' for the office which he now holds. Though we respectfully and constructively disagree with some of the President's views, hurling abuse at the democratically elected leader of our nation's most important ally can only be damaging for the interests of our country. And it further demonstrates just how unfit he is to lead this nation.

Last month, a matter of weeks into the new US presidency, our foreign minister visited Washington to meet with the Vice-President, Mike Pence, and the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. I understand that the foreign minister reinforced Australia's commitment to the alliance and our ongoing cooperation in responding to the regional and global challenges, including on the vital coalition to defeat Daesh. That is the responsible course. We must have constructive, frank and forthright dialogue with our closest ally, face to face. When we disagree, just as much as when we agree, we must work together in a mature and calm manner. That is what friends do. What we must not do is behave like the Leader of the Opposition, sniping from the sidelines and throwing insults at democratically elected world leaders in the name of cheap, political point scoring.

Mature discussion and concrete results are what we need, and they are what the coalition government has delivered. In defence, 2017 has seen the beginning of enhanced aircraft cooperation, with the arrival of the F-22 Raptor aircraft at RAAF Base Tindal. Fighter aircraft are an important area of cooperation, with real benefits for Australia in not only improved defence capacity but economic outcomes. The Joint Strike Fighter program alone will generate up to $4 billion in exports for Australia, benefiting Australian companies who have won Defence contracts to supply specialist equipment and logistics for the JSF project worldwide.

In innovation, the government has renewed our science and technology cooperation agreement with the US. Recognising that innovation will be vital to jobs and growth for the foreseeable future, we have negotiated to extend the agreement indefinitely for the first time. This program will facilitate ongoing partnerships between Australian and US research institutions. Partnerships such as that between the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Boeing, and between the Australian National Fabrication Facility and the US Air Force, are delivering important progress in areas like environmental monitoring and energy supply.

In immigration, the government is delivering on the resettlement of refugees from Nauru and PNG through a unique agreement with the United States. Many refugees have already been interviewed by US authorities. The ongoing arrangement shows the value of this government's positive and consistent engagement with our North American ally. This government's stance on immigration is, of course, in stark contrast to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, when they left our borders in chaos and left many thousands trapped in indefinite detention.

Our historic, cultural, economic and military links with the United States are deep and strong. In the future, our security and prosperity will be greatly enhanced by the continuing friendship between our nations.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Chuck Berry toured Australia in January and February in 1959 for the first time. He came back here four times—November 1973, September 1976, 1978 and September 1989. I was fortunate enough to attend one of his Australian concerts. The tour of that great American rock 'n' roll icon shows the deep cultural affinity Australians have with the United States. I recently saw mad Mel Gibson's great film Hacksaw Ridge. All of the actors were, practically, Australian. The great Richard Roxburgh, my personal favourite Hugo Weaving—all of them. It is very interesting that an iconic film about that great US medic and conscientious objector Desmond Doss, who saved 100 people on Okinawa, could be made almost exclusively with Australian actors.

That is the context in which this motion by the member for Canning, whom I praise for bringing this motion to the House, should be seen.

As the member for Gellibrand said, John Curtin made a famous declaration in 1941 that symbolically shifted that relationship of Australia towards the United States. Not only did Curtin insist that divisions be brought back home for the defence of Australia, including the 6th and 7th; he also made a little-known agreement with the President of the United States and Mr Churchill for the US 42nd Infantry Division to come to Australia for its defence, and for us to leave the 9th Division in the Middle East for its crucial role in the Battle of El Alamein. From the point of view of the victory of the Allies in the Second World War, that was a very wise agreement and again underlies the context in which the cooperation between Australia and the United States goes back. As one of the contributors said, it goes all the way back to the days of Monash, where the first 10 US companies involved in the First World War fought under Australian leadership at the Battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918. We have been with the Americans in every conflict since the First World War: the Second World War, obviously, Vietnam and many other places. Who can forget, for instance, Steven Spielberg's haunting film series The Pacific, where it was underlined that the 1st Marine Division came back from Guadalcanal, where they were nearly destroyed, and spent nine months in my city of Melbourne—nine months!—until they went back into service?

Regarding Australia's cooperation with the United States in intelligence, we have Pine Gap in the central part of Australia, the largest NSA/CIA base outside the United States, and it contributes to the peace of the world through its monitoring of missile launches in Russia, China and now, more pressingly, in North Korea. This has also led recently to the pivot—a bit disappointing—under President Obama, where only 1,250 US servicemen are here, but we have had, as someone pointed out, the squadron of Raptors arrive in Base Tindal for cooperation, and we have 30,000 troops serving together and getting experience in our regular biennial Exercise Talisman Saber.

The cooperation between Australia and the United States is seen at a technical level, at a military level and at an intelligence level, but it is underlined by our common democratic values and our huge business interests. Australia has $594 billion of investment in the United States. Iconic Australian companies like Visy and Westfield have their biggest representation there. We have enormous American investments in Australia that far outweigh any other investments by any other country. But I want to come back to this point: this entire cooperation is underlined, as pointed out in the motion of the member for Canning, by our common democratic values, our common systems, our common view of the world and the fact that we have a free press and freedom of assembly. The difference that the countries of the Five Eyes have compared to the rest of the world is something worth clinging to, and certainly being nonpartisan. I know that the member for Kooyong described the President of the United States as a dropkick. I do not think these kinds of things should be partisan. We should keep good relations with the United States, above all because of our common democratic values.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canning for bringing forward this motion on the relationship between Australia and the United States, no doubt shaped by our mutual experience of the alliance, and it is my privilege to work with the member on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, where we continue to focus on strengthening that alliance and relationship. It is a very special relationship that obviously spans culture and economy, but I want to talk particularly about the security sphere. Many people are not aware that we actually started serving with US forces—the US Marines, in that case—in the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1901, which was the last occasion that contingents from Australia fought in conflict before becoming part of the federated national army. It was a great surprise and privilege for me to see those photos on the wall of the Marine museum at the training depot in San Diego.

The relationship carried forward into the First World War. Every generation of my family has served in the military, and one of my family members served literally shoulder to shoulder with doughboys in the First World War at the Battle of St Quentin Canal in October of 1918, when the American II Corps, featuring the US 27th and 30th divisions, supported by the American 301st Heavy Tank Battalion, were engaged in a leapfrogging assault, during the course of which all the troops became very closely intermingled as some order broke down in that offensive, so our soldiers were fighting literally shoulder to shoulder with Americans in that battle. It carried forward right through the rest of the 20th century and into this century. My grandfather was a sergeant in the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion in the Second World War and, after fighting in the Middle East, landed on Java with his unit. All of those troops there were abandoned and formed what became known as 'Black Force' out of the legacy units that were left behind, and included in those units was the 2nd Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery Regiment of the Texas National Guard. Those troops fought on to the bitter end, starving, out of ammunition, out of supplies, until finally they had to surrender to the Japanese in March 1942. All of those soldiers ended up on the Burma-Thai railway together, surviving indescribable atrocities and forming an even closer bond.

We have heard mention of Prime Minister Curtin's change of policy in ensuring that that relationship became an enduring one throughout the rest of our mutual histories. My own service has been greatly enhanced by being able to serve alongside US colleagues, particularly with the US Marines in Somalia, in Bosnia, in Timor-Leste, and I served embedded with the US forces in Iraq for over a year from 2003 to 2004, and since then have worked closely with our American friends in my roles in parliament on Afghanistan transition and in procurement issues. Those American friends and I, with a lot of other colleagues, together worked through developing concepts to deal with the changing face of conflict and the so-called 'three block war', which has become very regularly employed in most of the counterinsurgency and stabilisation operations that we have experienced since the end of the Korean War, in effect. But that also led to the situation in the Iraq war where many failings of political and strategic leadership were revealed. It points to the fact that our relationship is one where we do have a responsibility to be good allies and to point out where those failings occur.

Of course, there were a lot of salutary lessons out of Iraq, which I am hoping the new US administration will take on board. I was deeply involved in exposure to a lot of intelligence activities in Iraq that suffered greatly from very irresponsible signals sent by the former secretary Rumsfeld in relation to interrogation in particular. People might remember my close involvement in the Abu Ghraib matter. It is very important that we send the right signals to our people in the field. There are no gloves-off, winks, nods or other issues that could lead to very sad consequences. I would also urge our colleagues in the US to really be careful with and to struggle against any attempts to loosen the targeting regime, which in these types of environments could actually strategically threaten our position.

I am greatly heartened about the appointment of General Mattis, who has served within Iraq—he was the commander of the 1st Marine Division, referred to by the member for Melbourne Ports, which has as its shoulder flash the Southern Cross, and its unit anthem is Waltzing Matilda—General McMaster, who is also a great thinker, and General Kellogg, who was my chief of operations at the CPA. I am encouraged by that. It does hopefully point in the right direction for this relationship.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to speak on this important motion and pick up where the previous speaker began by highlight the importance of the messages and signals that we send, not just to our allies but to the general community, about how the enduring and important relationship between Australia and the United States not only provides the bedrock of our security in the region but also plays an important part in bringing together countries of like mind and like aspiration, now and into the future. One of my great concerns when we are dealing with the challenges of people who constantly test or question this relationship is that they do not see the commonality between our two great nations. When you think about Australia and the United States, there are very few countries that share the same degree of heritage where the influence has been an extremely positive one, but also has helped shape the foundations of our democracy itself.

When you think about the origins or foundations of Australia, many of the framers of our Constitution actually look to the United States as the foundation for our Constitution, understanding the importance of having government closest to the people it serves, through a system of federalism, but also making sure that you have elected checks and balances on the operations of our democracy, as we do through an elected House as well as an elected Senate. Each one of those principles is very important in shaping Australia as the liberal democracy that it is, because together we stand for the rule of law, together we stand for foundational freedoms. I was very glad to read in the press today that we are continuing to prosecute the case for foundational freedoms, like freedom of expression and the freedom of enterprise and economic opportunity.

It is not just our institutions, though, that bind our great nations together. There is of course an enduring relationship around security. It is our alliance that underpins our military capability and our general deterrent, to ensure we keep Australians safe and secure. Against ISIS, the coalition is helping to eradicate jihadism, misogyny, temporary forced marriage, polygamy and patriarchal coercion in the Middle East, as well as trying to keep people free across the world. Our special forces personnel are advising and assisting Iraqi services, alongside the forces of the United States, as well as training the Iraqi army and the Afghanistan security forces.

Our military alliance compliments the huge economic relationship that we also have with the United States. I think this is particularly important for one of the countries that consistently has been one of the greatest destinations of inward foreign direct investment into Australia. The United States has often been Australia's largest foreign investor, and continues to have that important relationship. It contributes so much to our economy. In 2015 it amounted to $173.5 billion. The stock of inward foreign direct investment from the United States was a substantial sum. It enables investment to come into this country to create jobs for Australians. But, more than create jobs for Australians, it also supports economic opportunities for Australians and builds the future of this country. If anybody is under any illusions about the human consequences of what happens when we do not have foreign direct investment, they just need to look around the world at places where that opportunity is denied.

The United States plays an incredibly important role in not just protecting our security but in helping to build its future. That is the critical point. We have other political parties in this nation, such as the Greens, questioning the enduring role of our relationship with United States. They are not just criticising or undermining our national security, they are also undermining the opportunity to build this country's future, because we need the enduring economic relationship we have with the United States. While we witness different political parties and activist groups, including the Greens, regularly critiquing the Trump administration in order to advance their long-held belief that the alliance should be scrapped—and it has been a long-held belief—in pandering to their ideological pursuits they ignore the human reality and the consequences of doing so. The danger of these views is both economic and strategic, not just for our nation but for every citizen. When we look around the world we know full well that we operate and exist in a region where there are differences of opinion, where strategic alliances are being redrawn, and we are going to face continuing challenges into the future. If we are not economically strong and we are not security strong, with the support and the assistance of the United States, we as a country will be more vulnerable into the future.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate will be adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.