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

Minister, you can be assured that I intend to retain the respectful tone of the debate so far tonight. I was not seeking to score a point. You described the organisations that I introduced to the debate a moment ago as making contributions that were 'puritanical', but I am happy to set that aside. Minister, do you acknowledge that the ICRC is the international authority on international humanitarian law—that is, the laws of war—and they do occupy a unique position in the legal ecology around the laws of war? I just wonder whether the minister would acknowledge that that is the case.