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

I am quoting from answer 1(c); it is in the bottom half of the paragraph, where Defence states:

In particular, Article 21—

This is referring to the convention rather than the bill—

will allow Non-States Parties (such as the United States) to defend the lives of ADF personnel through close air support, even when cluster munitions might be used.

In part (d), the view of the Defence is:

The bill does not prevent ADF personnel from working in coalition headquarters (conducting planning, providing intelligence and logistics support), in operations where cluster munitions may be used).

So it is the view of the ADF in their answers in 1(c) and (d) that we could still be intimately involved in military operations with a party that is not a state to the convention—which is where I think the minister would kind of like the full stop to occur in the sentence—in military operations with non-states parties where cluster weapons are planned and then used. I ask the minister, as we are running the clock down in the debate this evening, how on earth that conception of the operation of this bill in any way accords with the universal intention of this convention to ban these weapons from the face of the earth?