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

In the debate so far on the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024, you've heard from the Greens team the type of measured, intellectually engaged, mature analysis in relation to AUKUS that the Australian community expect about critical engagement with a massive proposal put to the parliament without a vote of the community and without an opportunity to go to an election on it because both sides of politics—the Labor Party and the Liberal Party—decided to back each other in. In relation to AUKUS, you've heard from Senator Cox about the implications for First Nations people, from Senator Pocock the implications for South Australia and from Senator Shoebridge the defence implications particularly. I want to add to that by directing my contribution to the diplomatic and foreign policy implications of the AUKUS pact, and it's right to do this in relation to this piece of legislation because it is a key enabler of the AUKUS political pact.

The Australian public expect that their foreign policy, the foreign policy conducted on their behalf by their government in their name, is independent in its nature, meeting the needs of the Australian community. Yet the AUKUS political pact, supported by both sides in this place, makes Australia's foreign policy subservient to that of the United States and the United Kingdom. The Australian community are very clear. We understand all too well the implications and the impact of letting Washington or London set the foreign policy agenda of this nation. We understand it because we watched as John Howard and George Bush took the Australian community to war in Iraq and Afghanistan against the overwhelming opposition of the Australian community—and the global community, in fact. Humanity united as it had never quite been in the history of our species to oppose the act of invasion, of illegal warfare, which was the invasion of Iraq. The catchcry of that movement was that we did not want to see men and women go to war, sent overseas to kill their fellow human beings because that would help the bottom lines of American oil corporations and help the domestic political dynamic of the Bush administration, of the Blair administration and of Howard here at home. We said together no to war, and we were right to do so.

It is in my mind, as I contribute to this debate, that we have only just learned, 20 years later, that in fact the suspicions of the antiwar movement at the time—that US political interests and the interests of US oil companies were driving the push for the war in Iraq and the Howard government's response to it—were in fact correct, because the cabinet papers spelt it out in black and white. And 20 years on from that disaster, only a couple of years out of ending the debacle of the war in Afghanistan, this parliament has brought before it a bill, under the name of a Labor government, which would seek to bind us in perpetuity to the foreign policy of the United States of America.

This pact makes no sense. It puts us at risk. It undermines the independence of our foreign policy and prevents us from playing a key role in our region, in addressing and engaging authentically with the actual needs of the region and of the community here in Australia to tackle climate change, to improve public health, to invest in education, to strengthen social services, to support human rights. All of these are the needs and demands of the Asia-Pacific community, of the Pacific Islands community, of people here in Australia. It is all being subsumed and undermined by this thoughtless charge into a closer alliance with the United States.

So the Greens will continue to oppose it, and we will continue to work with those in the antiwar and the pro-peace movement to oppose it. We join with those in the Australian community, the 80 per cent of the Australian community, who do not want to see a closer alliance with the United States, particularly a United States led by Donald Trump. We look at that prospect, another 20 years of following the US into regime change war after regime change war, and we say no. We proudly place our opposition on the record, and challenge those who would support that idea to cite a single instance, a single instance in the postwar period—