Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to begin by saying that these are never easy debates. These are never easy issues. I do not envy anyone who has the responsibility for making these kinds of decisions, especially when they relate to the lives of others. I want to say, though, that I respect the fact that good people can disagree with each other, that different views can be held and that, while my view may not concur with all views that are expressed in this parliament and in this chamber, I certainly respect the fact that in a debate like this good people with good intentions can have different views from the one that I will be sharing with this chamber.

I rise today to join my colleagues in this parliament in expressing, in the plainest terms, my great concern for the lives and livelihoods of the people of northern Iraq and north-western Syria, who are being butchered with medieval brutality by the so called Islamic State.

A lot of my friends in this chamber who know me well, know my story. They know that when I was five years old I fled Iran during the Iran-Iraq war to come to this country. I came to this country because it was a place of peace, a place of hope and a place of opportunity. I also came here because I wanted to be part of a country—party of a society—that would not turn its back on others. I believe the Australia of today has a responsibility for those who are suffering in northern Iraq and Syria. I believe that Australia, as an independent middle power, has a responsibility to do what we can, in a reasonable and sensible fashion, to minimise and, wherever possible, stop genocide, stop hurt and stop suffering.

There are senators here today who have raised the fact that previous governments and the current government have perhaps not done enough in other areas, in other conflicts. Senators have raised the spectre of Sri Lanka or sub-Saharan Africa. Let me put my view on the record. I believe Australia, as an independent middle power, should and can do a lot more in a lot of different areas. We should be using our aid budget. We should be using our resources. We should, where appropriate, be expressing our influence and our power to do the right thing by those who are suffering. But that debate, which is a separate debate, does not negate the fact that there is horror, genocide and brutality going on right now. And right now there is something we, as an Australian parliament, can do about it.

Two weeks ago today, I was standing in a refugee camp in Jordan not far from the Syrian border, hearing the stories of the tens of thousands of people who have fled Syria and a few who have fled Iraq. They were fleeing the horrors of the so called Islamic State but also the horrors of the Assad regime. These people had given up everything to flee the brutality that they were facing.

And only a few days ago, I met a man who had just arrived in the camp with his entire family from northern Syria. He was unshaven. He was scarred. He was burnt by the sun. He had been walking for 30 days with his three children and his wife. He was fleeing. We have a responsibility to those people. As global citizens—as a global middle power—we have a responsibility to do what we can to make sure that the suffering of those people does not go on.

It is an honour to be part of this kind of debate. As other colleagues have reiterated, there is no greater responsibility in the service of our nation than any decision to deploy the men and women of our defence forces. It is always a serious and difficult decision. I accept the fact that different people will come to this with different views but I want to reiterate the statements made by others in the opposition to affirm our appreciation for the fact that the government and the Defence officials provided us with briefings before this was announced. I add my voice to others in this place in condemning the actions of the barbaric murderers who have butchered their way across the Kurdish territories.

We cannot simply stand by and allow actions like this to proliferate in our world. This is not a situation that should be allowed to be tolerated. The fact is that we can have a different debate about what decisions have been made in the past and about what actions have or have not been taken. We can debate about the initial entry into Iraq and whether it was or was not appropriate and, if we could do it all again, what should or should not be done. But the fact remains that right now, right here, there is something the Australian government can and should do.

I also want to raise my voice in support of the many Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish nationals who are living in Australia, whose stories are not that different from mine. Many of them faced brutality under the Saddam regime when they migrated to this country, in way that is not dissimilar to the experiences of my family when I migrated to this country. They voice concerns and worries about what is going on in Iraq and northern Syria.

None of this should be conflated, in any way, with some kind of endorsement of the actions of the Assad regime or of al-Nusra or of any of the other players in that regime. No; what we are saying is: if there is genocide going on in the world and we can stop it, we have a responsibility to stop it. If there is horror, pain and suffering and we—as an independent middle power—have the ability and the opportunity to do something about it, we should not shy away from that simply because it is too difficult or because the local politics make it all too hard. This is about doing what is right. This is about doing what we have all been sent here to do. Frankly, this is what Australia does best.

I appreciate the right of the government to make these decisions; I also appreciate that this is not a government that has made this decision likely, that it has the support of the defence forces and that it has taken the relevant and necessary steps to properly brief the opposition before making this announcement, as it appropriately should have done. I call on the defence minister to keep his commitment and maintain a level of dialogue with the opposition as these events unfold, and I also want to reiterate what the leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, said earlier. In support of the decision he outlined two tests for the opposition—firstly, whether this is about responding effectively to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq to prevent genocide and to relieve suffering; and, secondly—I think this sometimes gets overlooked—are we doing what we can to promote a unity government in Iraq that is inclusive and that can achieve national cohesion and reject sectarianism and the alienation of minorities. It has to be about the long-term interests of Iraq.

Frankly, we as an Australian parliament, as an Australian government and as the Australian people cannot sit idly by, cannot allow these events to happen on the other side of the world, and argue that because it is so far away, because it has not directly impacted us yet, because it is on the other side of the world, we do not have a responsibility and that we do not have a role. Where there is pain, where there is suffering, where there is hurt, where there is genocide and Australia can do something about it, we always have a responsibility to play our role.