Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to join with both the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and the coalition more broadly to not support the Greens' desire to suspend the Senate to debate what they say was an illegal, immoral and unjust war. We know that war is a brutal undertaking. It should be avoided where possible, and the heavy decision of prime ministers and governments throughout our nation's history to send Australian troops to foreign lands to fight for freedom and democracy is often a decision that has been the most difficult for them to make. They have never done it lightly. But I think what we do know is that the Greens standing up today, trying to seek to suspend the work of the Senate, is simply the continuation of their anti-US alliance stance and their failure to recognise that this alliance has been beneficial not just to Australia, not just to the Pacific during World War II, but to the globe and to the principles of freedom and democracy that we both stand with. The federal government signed AUKUS, with a great announcement by the Prime Minister in America last week and it should be celebrated. We on this side are proud of our legacy as a former government in getting AUKUS off the ground and we are equally proud to support the current government in continuing an alliance that has brought stability to the globe for over 100 years.

You Greens talk a lot about the impact of war but you cannot wish away the fact that sometimes you have to stand up to bullies. You shouldn't accept the behaviour of Saddam Hussein towards the Iraqi people as normal and acceptable, that it is just something that they have to put up with. Do you know what? You could make the same actual case for our commitment to assisting the Ukrainian people against Putin but you don't. You are happy for us to support that particular commitment but you aren't actually happy on this one, and do you know why? Because it is all about the US alliance. You are hypocrites when it comes to where you stand on foreign relations.

We know that you have to stand up to bullies. There absolutely needs to be a strong US-UK alliance for stability across the globe. We welcome government's support and we stand with our allies. We are not ashamed of having allies. We are not ashamed of standing with them when we need to, and we call out the Greens for actually trying to hold future governments to not actually have to make the terrible and difficult decision to send Australian troops to war. We thank the troops for their fantastic efforts and we support them as veterans going forward.