Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Isn’t that extraordinary, Mr Deputy President, that the government does not want to support a motion for a debate that it should host about the deployment of our Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan? We have seen the rising death toll of Australians who are committed to this nation’s interest, going at the behest of the government—not the parliament, but at the behest of this and the previous government—to Afghanistan. What the Greens are calling for in this motion is a proper parliamentary debate. We owe that to our Defence Force personnel as well as to this nation.

The minister quibbles about matters that are in the preamble to the proposed resolution that there be a debate. They are of course the matters that ought to be debated. For example, he noted that Defence Force personnel were in Afghanistan in 2001 and withdrawn in 2002. That is because the deputy sheriff, former Prime Minister Howard, withdrew Defence Force personnel because the Bush administration did so then to invade Baghdad. The invasion of Iraq was a monumental error in terms of Afghanistan, for which our Defence Force personnel should not now be paying. It is absolutely essential in this democracy that we debate the deployment of personnel. Senator Ludlum has a bill before the House, which ought to be passed in my judgment, but in the absence of the parliament debating the deployment of troops, and that being a matter that is determined by the Prime Minister, we should at least have an honest, full-ranging and open debate in this chamber.