Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to pass some remarks on this motion. While I definitely condemn the widespread sponsoring of terrorism, I think it's very important that we reflect on the West's actual role in sponsoring terrorism in the Middle East over the last 70 years.

In my lifetime, I saw the illegal invasion of Iraq and the death of what is estimated to be a million people in Iraq. I've never seen any accountability by governments in the West for the actions they caused there. And then we go to Iran: what happened in Iran, and why is Iran the country it is today? There was a president of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who cared deeply for his people, and he wanted those oil interests of Iran to be in Iranian hands. Yet the British, under Churchill, and the Americans, under Eisenhower—and I'm not sure how much Eisenhower knew about this, because there is a widespread pattern of coups whenever presidents take over, in their first year. These coups include Iran in 1953, Suez Canal in 1956, the Bay of Pigs when Kennedy got in, and Johnson in 1965 with Vietnam. The point of the matter is that the CIA overthrew a democratic leader in Iran who wanted to fight for his people and make sure that his country got royalties for those oil sales. That led, of course, to the Shah and his oppressive regime, which led to the overthrow, in 1979, of the Shah and what we've got today.

I've been to Iran. It's a beautiful country with beautiful people. I've been to Israel as well. I don't support any terrorism, but I think we need to be careful about taking a stand and being self-righteous about this when we've contributed ourselves.