Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the 20th anniversary of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of the Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of the matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War.

The Greens move this motion today and put this matter before the Senate on this, the 20th anniversary of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq. There is no more appropriate day to consider this matter than today, given that it is, in fact, a moment in time when there are parties in political decision-making positions who oppose the Iraq War and given that family members across Australia worry for the safety of their children who are still deployed to Iraq, to this very day, under operations Accordion and Okra.

The Greens move this motion as the first order of business for the Senate this morning with sorrow in our hearts. We move it with sorrow for the over 500,000 who have died as a result of the Iraq War and of the destruction of the infrastructure created by that war, sorrow for the 1.2 million people still to this day internally displaced because of the war in Iraq and sorrow because of the five million orphans created by that war—five per cent of the entire orphan population of the globe.

We move this motion today in solidarity with the 92 per cent of Australians who gathered together—hundreds of thousands—in cities across the country, who marched to oppose the Iraq war because they knew that the community was being lied to. They knew they were being presented with false intelligence. They knew that they were being marched to war by men who wished to see other people's children placed in harm's way to suit their political ends. We do this in solidarity with the organisers of those protests. I am honoured to work, to this day, alongside Damian Lawson, a key organiser of the anti-Iraq War protest here in Australia, which formed part of the largest global protest in human history. And we do so this morning with a renewed sense of determination, a commitment from every single Green in the Senate, every single Green in the House of Representatives, every single Green in the state parliaments and every single Green in the local governments of this country to oppose ever again being led into an illegal, immoral and unjust war at the reckless hands of the United States of America.

We do this in the full knowledge that the Australian people, at the time and to this day, knew full well that we should not go to Iraq, that it would be a humanitarian and foreign-policy disaster. They knew it, they protested and the Prime Minister ignored them point-blank because there is no requirement in this country to seek a vote of the parliament before the deployment of ADF personnel. ADF personnel from this nation were asked to go into harm's way in Iraq and in Afghanistan, yet not a single member of the government or opposition was required to vote before that occurred. Shame on this chamber for, to this day, opposing this reform that is supported by 86 per cent of the Australian people. Shame!

Finally, in closing, let me say this: those mothers and fathers that, to this day, are kept up at night for fear of the safety of their children deployed to Iraq still under Operation Accordion and Operation Okra deserve to finally have that fear come to an end. Twenty years later, Australia must end its deployments to Iraq. We must finally bring our troops home and work for an independent and peaceful foreign policy that sees that never again are we called into a war based on a lie led by the United States of America.