Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The chamber would not know this, but I have been speaking to Minister Faulkner and the previous minister for defence about some sort of delegation going to Afghanistan. I am deadset serious about this because this is a good opportunity. We should have a debate. I do not think the debate should be focused on saying that they should be returned, but I do think we should have a debate. This is a very serious issue. People are putting their lives at risk in Afghanistan. We have gone there for the right reasons, but we just need to make sure we know where we are currently at with this whole war and what is happening. I do not want to have a debate that leads to people saying, ‘I’m biased; just bring them home,’ or ‘I’m biased; just keep them there.’ We need to have a fair dinkum debate, and I call on the government to look at some sort of cross-party delegation to look at this issue in the Senate so that all parties can have a genuine look at it. Then we can have a decent debate rather than doing it on an ad hoc basis through a notice of motion and through bills. We should genuinely look at this as a cross-party issue in the Senate and look into this issue in some detail. It is very important, and I am on the record with the previous minister for defence, and this one, about some sort of cross-party delegation. Rather than shoving it off to some other way of doing it, we should do it seriously, and this chamber should seriously debate it.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bob Brown’s) be agreed to.