Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor's view on the Iraq War is well known. In 2003, Labor opposed the commitment of troops to the conflict in Iraq without the endorsement of the UN, and it was the former Labor government that took the decision to withdraw our combat troops from Iraq in 2008. For these reasons, the opposition will support paragraphs (a) to (d) of this motion.

However, the opposition asks for the question to be divided so that we can vote differently on paragraph (e). The opposition does not support the call for yet another inquiry into Australia's involvement in the Iraq war. The circumstances surrounding the decision to commit troops to the Iraq war have been the subject of a number of parliamentary inquiries, particularly in the Senate. The specific use of the intelligence of weapons of mass destruction has also been the subject of extensive government and parliamentary reviews, including the former Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD, and the 2004 Flood inquiry into the Australian intelligence agencies.