Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Maybe I could have expressed the question more clearly. I respect the reason we do not like to drift off into hypotheticals because of the way these debates will be interpreted later. Would this bill, should it become an act—and I am still holding out some faint hope that sense will prevail but we will see—prevent the ADF from participating in operations with non-states parties who are using cluster munitions? At the moment you have framed your answers like so: 'Look, maybe they have them in the arsenal but we are assuming they are not actually using them,' but there is nothing in my reading of the parts of the bill that we are referring to tonight—expressly sections 72.41 and 72.38—that would prevent the scenario I am describing. Call it hypothetical if you will. Human Rights Watch, the International Red Cross and a number of other observers believe this occurred in 2003. With respect to the fact that the United States government intends to remain a non-states party to this convention, can you tell us what would preclude a RAAF squadron performing exactly the kind of thing that I have described in 2003—or would that be permitted? It is not really hypothetical. It is about your interpretation of the bill.