Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

There are illegalities occurring in Iraq and Syria as we speak—people being beheaded and the mass killing of hundreds of innocents and captured soldiers. It is brutality writ large, and what is the concern of the Australian Greens? Whether the delivery of humanitarian aid is within international law. I would have thought a question about what the international community can do to work together to stamp out this evil might have been more appropriate for the Leader of the Australian Greens to ask. I also indicate that in the operation that Australia is involved in we are joined by Canada, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. I simply ask fellow senators and anybody listening: who do you think are the ones on whom international law ought to apply—on Canada, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, or on ISIL, a force that is evil writ large? We as a government make no apology for joining with other freedom loving democracies to ensure that the Kurds and others who are facing what is on the verge of genocide, without putting it too strongly, quite frankly get the protection they deserving. That is what we are seeking to do in conjunction with a request from other governments but also with the support of the Iraqi government.