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

We now come to the two remaining substantive amendments. I hope by now I have managed to persuade Senator Feeney that it is not enough for this chamber to unite in failure to vote down these Greens amendments but that in fact we still have the opportunity, as the clock runs down, to correct two grievous flaws in the bill such that the civil society groups who have shepherded this convention from inception to signing are now saying that they would rather Australia did not ratify, that they would rather this legislation did not pass. I suspect that, if the following two amendments (5) and (6) that we are now debating on sheet 7084 were to pass, that opposition would turn to support and that the Australian government could genuinely hold its head high and collect the accolades that it would deserve.

I understand there is a conference that the minister would want to be able to present our credentials to in the matter of this convention, but he would be doing it in the context of the groups who have been supporting the process and the convention will be opposed to the passage of this legislation. I think that is a tremendously sad indictment on the way that the Australian government has put the interests of the United States, which seeks to continue to deploy these horrific weapons, against the interests of the people who are maimed and killed by these weapons. I cannot be much more blunt than that. In fact, what we are seeing is a systematic sabotage of the convention. These are not accidental loopholes. These are not drafting errors.

Senator Feeney, I am reluctant to move to ask the chair to put the question on amendment 5, which relates specifically to interoperability, without some definition on the question that I put on notice last night and again early in the afternoon when we reconvened about the degree to which the Royal Australian Air Force supported operations in which the US used cluster weapons on their way into Baghdad. I wonder whether you could provide us any information.