George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

As you well know, Senator Johnston, having been the defence minister who was responsible at the time of the initial deployment—you showed great leadership, if I may say so—this is a very broad international coalition led by the United States of America in which Australia is one of the principal contributors. Many of the members of that coalition, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, have also relied on the doctrine of the collective self-defence of Iraq as the legal basis for their response to the Iraqi government's request for assistance. Those governments have also given article 51 notices to the President of the UN Security Council. I should say that some of those governments have relied on other bases as well, but they have all relied on the principle of collective self-defence, as has Australia, as we do now for the extended mission in eastern Syria.