Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the Greens for the intent behind their speech. We need scrutiny when we deploy people overseas. I commend our armed services for their work overseas and in this country. They have sacrificed a lot, and they have covered themselves with honour.

But I remind the Senate of Mr Alexander Downer's interview on the 7.30program, on the last day before he retired, where he said that John Howard came from America and strode into cabinet and said, 'We're off to Iraq.' That's not good enough. Now is not the time to do this. I want to refer to a new book recently released by Clinton Fernandes titled Sub-imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena. Clinton Fernandes is a Canberra man who works for the University of New South Wales and lectures at ADFA. He has the guts to tell it as it is. It reads: 'We are a sub-imperial power of the United States. We are making a mess of things by following the United States blindly into conflicts.'

Look at the Afghanistan withdrawal. Look at the mess that was created. Look at the weapons of mass destruction and the lies that were told to justify our invasion of Iraq. Then, quite openly and blatantly, we were told, 'Oh, there weren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; we lied to you.' The United States did that. Australia did that. Britain did that. Tony Blair admitted it. Where is the accountability? Yet, on the other hand, I'm conflicted. I had a haircut on Friday, and the barber was from Iraq. He said that Iraq is better off in certain areas. So I can't speak with knowledge.

There are two parts to the Greens motion in part (b):

(i) urges the Australian Parliament and government to learn the lessons of the past and to never again be dragged into another country's unjust war of aggression …

I support that. We need to learn from this. The only way to get accountability is to ask questions about it. The second part reads:

(ii) calls for the withdrawal of ADF personnel still deployed to Iraq today under Operation Okra and Operation Accordion.

I can't vote for that because I don't know the background. I don't know what the consequences will be, so I'm not going to open my mouth one way or the other on that, but I want to echo the words of Senator Watt: we need an inquiry into that deployment. I think the Greens are on the right track in opening that issue up, but I cannot support the suspension of standing orders to do that. I do support the intent, which is to have an inquiry and to develop accountability for these decisions of wantonly invading other countries in support of the United States. So I commend the Greens, but I won't be supporting their motion for the suspension of standing orders. I thank you for raising it.