Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in the strongest possible terms in support of the Defence Legislation Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2014, which inserts a new section into the Defence Act to require that decisions to deploy members of the Australian Defence Force beyond the territorial limits be made not by the executive alone, but by parliament as a whole—this means debate in both houses followed by a vote.

There is no more serious thing that a government can do than to send young Australian men and women into battle to fight for our country to put their lives on the line. That is why is it important that this decision not stay just with the Prime Minister and the executive, but be brought to the parliament. In the current circumstances, it is particularly important that parliament has this capacity, and that we have a strong debate, because if we do not learn from the past then we will repeat the mistakes of the past.

I went to begin my contribution by reading from the words of retired Major-General John Cantwell. He was our former commander in Afghanistan and he has published a very moving book, Exit Wounds. This is what he had to say:

Is it worth it? I recall sitting in my office one day in 2010, soon after a repatriation ceremony for another dead Australian soldier. With me was one of the senior officers on my staff. We looked at each other and I said, 'You know what, mate? I'd never say this in front of the troops, but I'm starting to wonder if these deaths are worth it.'

My colleague replied, 'You're not the only one asking that question, boss.'

Some will argue that the men and women we send to war are all volunteers, who know the risks and take them willingly. Others will say that casualties are the unavoidable cost of doing business in a combat zone. There is an argument that says the lives of a few sometimes need to be expended for a greater good. Another line of reasoning takes the grand, strategic view of international affairs, putting the case that Australia—a relative minnow in terms of military might, albeit a well-trained and reasonable well-equipped minnow—has no choice but to maintain strong bonds with a large and powerful friend, the United States. That friendship sometimes demands reciprocal payments, in the form of going to war and spending some lives. A cold, clear-eyed analysis of these claims tells me that they are all true, much as it pains me to admit it.

But these arguments only work at the intellectual level. They do not make sense at the human level, the level at which every life is precious, where each dead soldier is someone and not just a number. These men had parents, sisters, brothers, partners and children who loved them … They all had dreams and hopes and potential. These were the thoughts that ran through my head as I stood, time after time, in the morgue in the UAE. How could any of these lives be forfeited? What measure of success in the campaign to fight the Taliban and build Afghanistan's army could possibly warrant the grim procession of dead men that I supervised? I know, absolutely, that the men who died in Afghanistan were doing what they loved, with mates they respected, for a cause—rejecting extremism, denying terrorism, helping a needy people—which is honourable. I also know that advances have been made in training the Afghan National Army and improving security in Uruzgan province; some of the people of the province also have an improved quality of life. But will our efforts, no matter how impressive locally, significantly influence the myriad problems afflicting the government and people of Afghanistan? Ten years from now, will anyone in Afghanistan remember that Australians shed blood for them? For a man like me, a lifetime soldier inculcated with a sense of duty and service, these are difficult questions to confront.

In the prologue to this book, I wrote that such thoughts seemed disrespectful, even treasonous. But the fundamental question has continued to gnaw at me: is what we have achieved in Afghanistan worth the lives lost and damaged?

Today, I know the answer—it is no. It's not worth it. I cannot justify any one of the Australian lives lost in Afghanistan.

I quote that today in the context of our debate in this country about what is going on in Iraq. We have had the Prime Minister engaged in what can only be described as 'mission creep'. We started out with humanitarian assistance—which the Greens totally support—carrying out supply drops, and taking water and food to people in desperate need. Then it escalated to a point where our forces were engaged in transporting weapons into northern Iraq. At that point, there was a lack of clarification as to whether the Iraqi government had actually asked Australia to do that. It is pretty clear now that the engagement had all been with the United States and that Australia was just going along with the United States in spite of the fact that President Obama has said there is no strategy. Then we had our Super Hornets placed on standby, ready to engage in airstrikes. Overnight, it was announced that there has been a general request to help with the conflict in Iraq. That is clearly asking to put Australia on notice to send our military forces into full engagement in Iraq, yet this parliament has not had a fulsome debate. We have not heard from the Prime Minister what the strategy is. As Major General Cantwell said in his profound book, you have to have a 'cold, clear-eyed analysis' of what you are doing, whether it is worth it, what your strategy is, what you are going to achieve, and I do not believe there has been any of that. I do not believe the Prime Minister has set out the case.

It is absolutely true that the atrocities being carried out by ISIS in Iraq are appalling, shocking. Nobody supports the beheading that has gone on, the gunning down of innocent people and the absolute attempts to exterminate whole villages and the like. But, equally, we have to acknowledge that this is not something that is only going on from the Sunnis in the ISIS movement. The Shiah militias, which are supporting the Iraqi government, have been carrying out the same atrocities for some time. From 2005 to 2007 we saw exactly the same thing, and recently 70 or 80 people were killed in a mosque. We have seen beheadings. We have seen the same brutality engaged with the militias. Now we are taking weapons to one part of the conflict, and no guarantee can be given that those weapons will not end up in the hands of the Shiah militias. If we succeed—and I hope we do—in using all our diplomatic power to exert influence to make sure the new government in Iraq is inclusive of the Sunnis, how do we know that the weapons we have transferred into northern Iraq will not be used by the Shiah militias to turn on the new Iraqi government? This is the complicating factor. The result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq has meant that there has been a power vacuum in the country which has allowed the sectarian rivalries that have gone on for hundreds of years to be inflamed to the point that they are engaged in effectively a religious war against each other.

My question to the government has been: what is the strategy here? Overnight, President Obama said that he wants to degrade ISIS, but he says that they cannot be beaten. He has stayed out of Syria for three years. The Prime Minister says that you cannot stand by and watch atrocities happen. Well, we have. We have stood by and watched atrocities happen in Syria for three years. These ISIS fighters are coming out of Syria into northern Iraq. The reason they have made such headway in northern Iraq is that the areas they have moved through are the Sunni areas. They are Sunnis coming into ISIS, coming through the Sunni areas, and now a stand is being taken by the Kurdish people, and also as they start getting into the Shiah-held areas.

The question is: what are we doing on the diplomatic front? The best hope of getting some sort of settlement is to make sure the moderate Sunnis in Iraq support an inclusive government and are included in that government to split them off from the extremist Sunnis in ISIS. That is what we have to do. It has to be a mission to support that government. Yet we have the current Prime Minister of Iraq, al-Maliki, standing up and talking about the taking back of those villages, which of course we welcome, from ISIS in the north—but he did not acknowledge the work of the United States or Australia in bringing in weapons and he did not acknowledge the work of the Kurdish people. He said it was a second Karbala. If that is not designed to totally ramp up the jihadism, the whole absolutely religious confrontation, I do not know what is. How irresponsible was it of al-Maliki to say that? Of course, the Karbala he was referring to was a religious war in 680 AD. That is what we are taking on in Iraq.

My question to the Prime Minister is: what is the plan? I do not believe there is a plan. I think the only plan is to go along with the United States and build up the emotional engagement in Australia for taking on ISIS without pointing out to Australians that this could, and will, lead to a quagmire where we find ourselves very rapidly engaged in another Iraq war with no end and no objective in sight. At this point we should be hearing a strategy from the government, but there is not one.

I condemn absolutely the horrific crimes against humanity that are being carried out in Iraq by ISIS, in Syria by ISIS, in Nigeria by Boko Haram—wherever these are occurring all over the world. But the reason this decision should come to the parliament is precisely that—these are complicated questions. People like the Greens are asking serious questions about strategic outcomes, because young Australians will be asked to die, but we are being ridiculed, because the government seems to have embraced a strategy which says: go along with the United States; shoot first and ask the questions later. We need to be asking those questions right now.

The Prime Minister has not only responded to the request of the United States; he has said to the United States, 'You'll never walk alone.' Well, I have lived long enough to remember Harold Holt in relation to the Vietnam War saying, 'All the way with LBJ'. It seems to me that Australia must have an independent foreign policy. This is the Asian Century. We must stand and have an independent foreign policy. Instead of that we are having a repeat of 'All the way with LBJ' with 'You'll never walk alone.' We have to understand, as Major Cantwell has said, what the point is, what the objective is, what the likelihood of success is and what else needs to be in place before we engage in this. Clearly, as I have said, we need diplomatic efforts to make sure that the new government of Iraq is inclusive of all minorities so that you dampen jihadism, not rev it up, which is what is happening at the moment. Further, you need to seal the border from Turkey, which is allowing ISIS jihadists and so on to pass through and gain entry. You also need to know who is funding ISIS. They are being funded by governments in the region, including Kuwait. What are the Saudis doing in relation to ISIS?

And Wahhabism, out of Saudi Arabia and into the region: what are we doing in terms of a diplomatic arrangement with neighbouring countries and stopping the flow of money that is supplying the ISIS campaign? These are serious issues, and when I asked about these issues in the parliament Senator Abetz had no answers other than to just ridicule the Greens for asking the questions. They are legitimate questions to ask before you send young men and women into harm's way and before you see a plane being shot down or coffins coming back to Australia. We need to know why it is in the national interest.

We have also had, overnight, the Prime Minister announcing that we will have an embassy in Kiev. We have been asked for humanitarian and non-lethal assistance in the Ukraine. We are now talking about engaging with civil and military capacity-building as a result of our enhanced partnership with NATO. And it seems to me that we then have another front, with the Prime Minister deciding that we are going to sell uranium to India and not making sanctions against the Russians with uranium going into Russia. India is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty and is a nuclear power. And we have the Prime Minister also saying that Japan is Australia's best friend in Asia. But you actually do not announce best friends in a regional context, especially when there is so much tension over the South China Sea.

So, we have a Prime Minister who is now absolutely putting Australia out there in conflicts in the Ukraine and in Iraq and supporting nuclear power in India. What is the plan for Australia with this military engagement? That is what I am asking, and I am asking it on behalf of the Australian people. I think this parliament has the right to ask those questions and the right to understand what Australia's strategic objective in engagement is. What is in Australia's national interest in our being engaged in the Ukraine? What is it? What is it that is in Australia's national interest? That is the hard-headed, strategic question that the Prime Minister must answer, and he has not answered it.

The legislation we have here of course says that in order to give the parliament this power the parliament would have to reconvene in a timely manner. In fact, it says that the Governor-General would be able to make a proclamation regarding a declaration of war, provided that parliament is then recalled within a period of two days. So, I am not suggesting that this matter would be left open-ended. But the Democrats introduced this bill in the mid-1980s, the Greens have embraced it ever since and we are bringing it here to say that, like the United States, where Congress makes the decision about the deployment of United States forces, the Australian parliament should make the decision about the deployment. I do not think it is doing the national interest very much good to have this assumption about this just because the government—totally supported by the Labor Party as a result of confidential briefings—is engaged in a mission creep that is going pretty fast. Within a week we are now being asked by the United States to help with the conflict in Iraq. Australians need to know, because I do not want to have to revisit this, as Major Cantwell has done in his book, when we see the coffins coming back. Why are we there? What are we hoping to achieve? How long will we be there? What is our exit strategy? Did we ever have any hope of winning?

If President Obama has said overnight that ISIS cannot be defeated, and given the history—the sectarian violence in Iraq, in the region—then what is it that Australia is seeking to do? What are the risks? What is the objective? That is why the parliament should be able to debate these matters. If we are going to take on a global role in military engagement, what is Australia's respect or otherwise for international law? Are we going to do it within the framework of international law, or are we just going to follow the United States regardless of international law and without the UN Security Council engagement? These are serious matters that warrant serious debate in the parliament. It in fact demeans people when there is this level of ridicule rather than an engagement of the serious matters. That is why I support the bill.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to address the Defence Legislation Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2014. This is the bill that was introduced into the Senate this July by the Greens through Senator Ludlam. I note that the bill essentially is unchanged from the 2008 bill of the same name, which was also introduced by Senator Ludlam. Just to give an outline, the bill proposes that the ADF not be permitted to serve outside the territorial limits of Australia except in accordance with a resolution agreed to by each house of parliament or in accordance with a number of specific circumstances. And the bill goes through to list a number of specific circumstances in which members of the Australian Defence Force may serve outside our territorial regions. The bill contains some provisions for emergency situations in which the Governor-General can proclaim that an emergency exists that may require ADF service. But the essential part is that the proclamation has to go before each house of parliament, allowing for debate and a vote within two days.

Given that this has its origins in previous bills—indeed, as the leader of the Greens has just stated, this stems all the way back to a bill that was put before the parliament by the Democrats some years ago—I think it is instructive to go back and look at the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee inquiry that examined that bill put forward by the Democrats. The inquiry was reasonably comprehensive. At the time, Senator Faulkner was the Minster for Defence. A number of people, including the department and people from the community and other organisations, made submissions. In the concluding remarks of its report the committee, which obviously is a bipartisan committee of the parliament, made comments that those supporting the bill believed that any such decision required debate and approval by the parliament. While acknowledging the critical importance of parliamentary debate, most opponents of the bill stopped short of accepting the requirement that both Houses of parliament to approve the deployment of Australian troops. They held misgivings about the practical application of some provisions, and I will go to that in terms of practical applications a little later, but I think this bill suffers from the same deficiencies. Going back to the concluding remarks in that report:

Since 1986, when the Defence Amendment Bill 1985 was debated, a number of shortcomings in the proposed legislation have been raised consistently.

There are a number of things they talked about whether or not the parliament is in session, but they came particularly to the issue around the treatment of classified material, as well as constraints on the ability of Defence to mobilise its forces safely and effectively. They also noted some problems with definitions.

On the issue of the disclosure of classified or sensitive intelligence, they went on to say:

…may well compromise an operation and the safety of Australian forces or those of their allies.

The report also makes the point that if in order to protect our forces or our allies:

…information were necessarily withheld from the Parliament, then those required under the proposed legislation to make critical decisions about the deployment of forces would not be fully informed—an equally concerning situation for the security of the nation and its forces.

The committee found, after some deliberation, that:

…the legislation does not address these concerns adequately.

It went on to say that:

Although the proposed legislation allows for emergency situations, the committee is concerned that the process of seeking Parliamentary approval may, in some circumstances, cause difficulties for the effective and safe deployment of Australian forces. ... It also has concerns about possible unintended consequences that may arise including implications for the Defence Force should approval not be forthcoming after forces have been dispatched in response to an emergency.

I notice that this current bill has similar provisions, whereby the Prime Minister can advise the Governor-General, who can make a declaration of an emergency. Forces can be dispatched, and you can then have a debate, but then you face the possibility of parliament not approving. That means that you then have to go through the sometimes dangerous—not to mention logistically difficult—act of withdrawing forces who, by then, may be engaged with some opponent. It also will fundamentally affect Australia's reliability as an ally—our alliances with other parties, with whom Australia has defence and security agreements, and not just the US.

Finally, the report goes on to talk about a range of other activities where Australia does deploy its forces in a situation where they may have to use force. Anti-piracy is a good example at the moment and is one of just a number of examples that are laid out in this committee report. It discusses the complexity of the legislation, how it would be applied and why the executive still needs to hold the ability to deploy forces.

The reason I think it is important to go back and reread these reports is that here we have the legislation brought before the parliament. It is now being debated. Yet this particular piece of legislation has not had the opportunity of the review that the previous one did. The previous legislation—which was very similar in nature to the last bill from the Democrats, to Senator Ludlam's last bill and to this one—had a number of flaws that were identified that have yet to be addressed from the last committee report. I think it does not behove the Senate to look at passing this without a similar level of scrutiny and without addressing the concerns in that report.

To go to the second reading speech by Senator Ludlam, one of his opening statements was:

Australia is one of the few remaining democracies that can legally deploy its defence force into a conflict zone without recourse to the parliament.

If we look at a number of our allies, that is not actually the case. Here in Australia, it is true that there is no requirement in the constitution or Defence legislation for parliamentary involvement in most acts of declaring war and deploying troops:

…the power to make war, deploy troops and declare peace–are now part of the executive power of the Commonwealth exercised by the Governor-General on the advice of the Federal Executive Council or responsible ministers. Contemporary practice, however, is that decisions to go to war or deploy troops are matters for the Prime Minister and Cabinet and do not involve the Governor-General or the Federal Executive Council.

Since the establishment of the National Security Committee of Cabinet in 1996, this body is probably the primary body that has access to all the classified information and briefs from departments. They then made the decision on behalf of the government. Let's look at our allies—and this goes back to the comment that Australia is one of the few remaining democracies that does this—and start with Canada. Under Canadian constitutional law:

The Federal Cabinet can, without parliamentary approval or consultation, commit Canadian forces to action abroad, whether in the form of a specific current operation or possible future contingencies resulting from international treaty obligations. Under the Canadian Constitution [Constitution Act, 1867, sections 15 and 19], command of the armed forces … is vested in the Queen and exercised in her name by the federal Cabinet acting under the leadership of the Prime Minister.

Canada still, essentially, has the same executive power that exists here in Australia.

Let's go to New Zealand:

The formal right to declare war was clearly part of the Royal Prerogative inherited from Great Britain in 1840 and it remains an acknowledged part of New Zealand law. Defence and wartime prerogatives include the right to declare war and peace, and the deployment and armament of defence forces.

The Royal Prerogative is primarily exercised by the Governor-General on the advice of elected ministers or executive by authority of the Letters Patent Constituting the Office of the Governor-General of New Zealand 1983 (SR 1983/225).

If we go the United Kingdom, a case which is often quoted:

The deployment of troops and the issuing of orders to engage in hostilities are matters of Royal Prerogative, exercisable by Ministers. The Government has liberty of action in this field, and Parliament need not give its approval.

I repeat that: parliamentary approval is not required in the UK.

…it is usual for Governments to keep Parliament well informed of decisions to use force and of the progress of campaigns.

It is also true that in the UK:

Since 2003 there have been calls for aspects of the Royal Prerogative, including the monarch’s war powers, to be codified and subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

A draft bill to modify the UK legislation is before the House of Lords. It is far narrower in scope than this proposed Australian bill, and the draft bill there applies only to decisions by the government to authorise the use of force by UK forces if the use of force is both outside of the UK and regulated by the law of armed conflict. The UK bill also includes key exceptions for emergency security and special forces. Despite there being no legal requirement to consult or seek approval, the Cameron government sought in-principle support from the House of Commons in 2013 for United Kingdom military action against the Syrian government. It was a decision that the Prime Minister made; but in that case he was defeated and accepted that advice. Whilst he used his discretion to do that, the claim that Australia is one of the few remaining democracies where the executive has the power to commit forces to war is clearly not correct.

In the United States, the Constitution, under article 1 section 8 clause 11, grants to Congress the power to declare war, 'to raise and support armies' and 'to provide and maintain a navy'. While the President is made the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, under article 2 section 2 clause 1, the specific power to deploy US Armed Forces is covered by the War Powers Resolution 1973, also known as the 'war powers act'. The War Powers Resolution imposes on the President thus:

The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.

This is where it gets messy. The terms in 'every possible instance' and 'consult' are not defined by the resolution and have been interpreted in different ways at different times by different parties. Notably, the term 'consult' does not equate to the approval of Congress, a matter that is contemplated by this bill before the Senate today. Many US presidents have claimed that the War Powers Resolution is an unconstitutional infringement on their authority as the Commander-in-Chief and have refused to be bound by it. The US courts, likewise, have been reluctant to accept jurisdiction in matters seeking to enforce the resolution, asserting that it is a political rather than judicial matter. In one case in 2003, a judge of the District Court rejected the contention that the President must have congressional authority to order American forces into combat, saying that 'case law makes clear that the Congress does not have the exclusive rights to determine whether or not the United States engages in war'.

The opening premise of this bill before us is that Australia is one of the few remaining democracies, even amongst our allies, where the executive has the legal authority to deploy forces to war. But in comparative nations with whom we have close defence ties like Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand, the executive retains the right to deploy forces without having to seek congressional or parliamentary approval.

One of the key concerns raised in the committee report that I referred to earlier is the competence of parliament to be engaged and involved in military decisions. Senator Milne's contribution before, in a very minor way, illustrates this. She quoted from a book by Major General Cantwell. While it is superficial to point out that the difference between a major and a major general is substantial, it does point to the fact that, unless people have had an involvement in defence related matters, it is easy to not understand the importance of language, terms and considerations. Whilst, at a broad level, I understand that the parliament has an interest in what is occurring and has a moral obligation to hold the government to account, I have deep concerns with the parliament being involved in executive decisions around the use of force.

Often in this debate, people have referred to the Iraq War. But in that case, would parliamentary debate have made a difference in whether forces were deployed and, more particularly, in the outcomes that were achieved? When most experts look at the outcomes in Iraq, they conclude that the decision to remove the Ba'ath Party and all its structures destroyed governance within Iraq and that it was the subsequent power vacuum that led to much of the dysfunction. I, along with many other people, agree with that. But it raises the question: if the parliament had given approval to deploy forces, would we have had a different outcome? No, because that was subsequent to the actual action. The logical question then is: how deeply will parliaments become involved in the strategic, operational and tactical decisions of armed forces when approaching the issue?

You could argue that requiring a post-war plan is a strategic consideration, but it opens a grey area about how deeply parliaments reach into decisions beyond the decision to commit troops—that is, what they do in theatre and how they act. From conflicts in the past, we have seen poor outcomes on the ground; Vietnam is a case in point where there was a lot of political interference in how that war was fought, as opposed to setting a clear military objective and then allowing the military to use the most effective means to achieve the outcome. So the role of the parliament, if it were involved beyond the decision to deploy forces, is a grey area that this bill opens up. I think Iraq proves that we would not have had a different outcome if the parliament had approved the deployment, unless it were also involved in subsequent decisions about how the war was fought.

It is important that we do not remove from the executive the powers that it currently has on the basis of false assumptions. The assumption that our allies and other democracies do not give the executive this power is not correct. There has been a consideration in detail of similar bills that have been moved by the Democrats, and by Senator Ludlam in the past, and the consideration of committees from multiple parties reached the conclusion that the bill should not be supported. In the absence of details that address the concerns of those committees and in the absence of further detailed consideration, I cannot, and will not, support this bill.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor will not be supporting this bill. This is the same position that Labor has held since a version of this bill was first moved in the parliament in 1985. In the nearly 30 years since the first bill requiring parliamentary approval for military deployment was moved, Labor's concerns have still not been addressed.

I will briefly provide some information on the context in which this bill is being moved. Right now, there are thousands of ADF personnel posted around the world—many to places which the people listening might not be aware of. We have got 25 people in Egypt, 19 in South Sudan, 12 in Israel and Lebanon, 250 on the HMAS Toowoomba in the Middle East, 550 at Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE, 400 in Afghanistan and many others throughout the region and the world. ADF personnel are capable of being deployed in a range of roles, including humanitarian and disaster relief, antipiracy, peacekeeping, mentoring, monitoring, training, anti-insurgency and traditional military operations.

Before I outline Labor's concerns with the bill, let me reassert the position that I put earlier in the week. Labor firmly believes that it is the role of parliament to debate and discuss military deployments before, during and after Australian troops are sent into harm's way. This is the most serious decision that any government should face and it should never be taken lightly. We are all sent to the parliament to represent the views of our constituents, and that most certainly includes any decision to send troops to war.

I note the update that the Prime Minister provided to the parliament earlier in the week and the debate and discussion which followed here and in the other place. That update continues a long tradition in this place and one which was supported wholeheartedly when Labor was in government. Labor believes that it is important for the parliament and the Australian people to be fully informed of the progress of our overseas deployments.

I note the commitment of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence to continue to keep the parliament updated. This will ensure that there are frequent opportunities for debate and discussion about the merits or otherwise of the government's decision to deploy troops overseas. I have been heartened that all of our debates in the parliament and the community, in recent years, have been focused on government policy. I know that the hardworking men and women of the ADF enjoy the full support of all parliamentarians and the Australian community, and I am confident that will continue to be the case.

On that note, I would like to take a moment to express my support for the ADF personnel currently serving overseas. Right now, we have service men and women who are undertaking humanitarian operations in Iraq. They are doing great work to help prevent genocide and to support the Kurdish fighters who are on the front line of the battle against IS. As always, ADF personnel are acting with the professionalism and skill which has earned them the admiration of our friends and allies around the world. I had the privilege of meeting a number of the air men and women from RAAF's No 37 Squadron on a recent visit to RAAF Base Richmond. They are incredibly skilful and hardworking men and women, and I was impressed by how proud they were of the work they do. The 37 Squadron are currently delivering humanitarian supplies to besieged communities in the north of Iraq. Given the expert work that we have seen, I think everyone here would agree that their pride is not misplaced and their professionalism is beyond question. The danger of the work that they are currently doing cannot be understated. I know that we will be watching closely and wishing the men and women of 37 Squadron and all other ADF personnel a safe return.

Turning to the substance of the bill, Labor have a number of concerns. The role of the parliament in approving military action is fraught with danger. The bill before the House is virtually identical to a bill moved back in 2008. That bill was referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. The committee's report is a serious and detailed evaluation of the proposition put by the Greens. The committee found in 2010 that the 2008 bill 'leaves too many critical questions unanswered' and 'may have unforseen and unfortunate consequences'.

I would like to quickly go through what those concerns were, as they are just as relevant today. The first is the issue of access to classified information. The government of the day has access to classified information which the parliament does not. It is simply not safe, appropriate or practical to provide classified, national security information to a wider audience. Australia's defence and national security agencies provide information and advice to the government which must remain secret for a whole range of reasons, including—and especially—the safety and security of our ADF personnel. It is impossible for the parliament to make informed decisions to deploy ADF personnel without access to this information and it should not be asked to do so. As I have said, Labor fully supports the role of the parliament as a place of debate, but that should not be confused with requiring parliamentary approval for the deployment of ADF personnel.

The second issue is the flexibility that the government must retain in order to respond to threats quickly and effectively. Requiring a statement from the government prior to deploying ADF personnel and assets could unnecessarily increase the risk of our deployments. The government, on occasions, may be required to quickly pre-deploy combat or humanitarian forces to assist our friends in a time of crisis or to pave the way for a larger deployment. The government may also need to predeploy combat forces in a quiet manner to facilitate the success of an imminent mission. To require a debate and approval in parliament prior to this action would unreasonably increase the risk to these operations and the personnel involved in them.

A third concern is the potential for unintended consequences flowing from the way the bill is structured. The procedures for the deployment of ADF personnel in emergency situations set out in this bill require the parliament to sit within 7 days. According to the explanatory memorandum, this is in order to 'seek parliamentary approval for the deployment.' This could see ADF personnel deployed into a war zone only to have their legal authority revoked a week later. This obviously creates a completely untenable situation. It would place ADF personnel, not to mention any coalition partners who may be relying upon ADF personnel, in a compromised position. It could lead to ADF personnel being deployed to a warlike environment without legal authority or legal protection. This is simply unacceptable. I am sure that no-one in Australia would want to see our ADF personnel placed in such a position. The bill, as currently drafted, creates a situation where this cannot be ruled out.

The last issue of concern that I will focus on today is the interaction of the bill with Australia's Constitution. I will not reinvent the wheel here, as Senator Faulkner addressed this issue when an identical bill was moved in 2008. I would recommend his speech to anyone who is interested in this issue, as Senator Faulkner does a fine job outlining Labor's concerns. In arguing against the 2008 bill, Senator Faulkner said:

While it is true that the forms of parliamentary approval or parliamentary consultation are required in some other systems of government, it is very important to realise that such comparisons or analogies are, if not invalidated, then certainly complicated by the major differences in the constitutional frameworks of these countries.

There are many problems with this bill and I have highlighted a few of them here today. Labor has a long-held position that the executive government is the most appropriate body to exercise civilian control of the ADF.

Australia is one of the greatest democracies in the world. Every three years we vote to choose who represents us in the national parliament. The government elected may not be of everyone's choosing, but they carry with them responsibilities for the entire country. One of those responsibilities, perhaps its most important responsibility, is deciding if and when to send Australian forces into harm's way. It is right that this responsibility stays with the executive government, not the parliament. The bill presented today will not be supported by Labor.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because of the context in which we are conducting this debate, I will not say that I am pleased to stand to support the Defence Legislation Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2014 today, but I do thank senators from both sides of the chamber for the respectful way they have engaged with the measures in it. I will speak briefly to the concerns that have been raised by Senator Conroy and Senator Fawcett, which I think are reasonably easy to categorise—they have been a part of this debate for years. This bill has been languishing in plain sight for nearly three decades. It was introduced by the Australian Democrats in 1985. When I was elected in 2007, I inherited the bill from Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats. It has been on the Notice Paper of this place more or less continuously for that period of time.

As a number of other senators have acknowledged, the most recent committee inquiry into this measure was conducted in 2009 by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. It reported in February 2010. The inquiry was treated in quite a cavalier fashion, although others have acknowledged the value of the work that was conducted. The committee at the time blocked our request to even hold a hearing, so the evaluation of the bill's measures was done on the papers—it was not thought that any of the witnesses could add anything substantive to the debate, an opinion with which I strongly disagree to this day. We convened a hearing anyway, having to let the witnesses and those who gave evidence know that they were not protected by parliamentary privilege since it was not a formal hearing of the parliament. Nonetheless, people from a very wide variety of backgrounds gave evidence. We had people from very senior levels of Defence, the intelligence community and the Australian Defence Association and we had groups like the Marrickville Peace Group—a whole spectrum of views on this. Senator Brandis seems to think this is funny—just hilarious!

As I was saying, we heard from a whole range of groups with a whole range of views—including from a former secretary of defence and people who had been engaged in these issues at the very highest level. These witnesses brought a whole range of opinions to bear to show that the issues are not insurmountable—and that it is in fact time for Australia to grow up and to put this power into the hands of the legislature, as so many other countries have done. I commend to this chamber the report of the committee. I think the majority report sets out quite coherently both the arguments for and against a measure like this and the ways we could have moved the debate forward. The major parties, however, simply combined to recommend that, nonetheless, the bill not pass. Our minority report from that inquiry still stands the test of time.

I said it was time we grew up. The power to deploy young men and women into combat from which they may not return or may returned damaged, physically or mentally, remains at the moment effectively with the Crown through the Prime Minister's office—as it has since the days of feudalism and monarchies. That is what I mean by 'time we grew up'. It is not enough to say that the Prime Minister should be able to decide, as the King did hundreds and hundreds of years ago, to marshal his peasantry and send them into war. That is why, in recent decades, we have seen kindred democracies transfer the war power from the authority of the executive, in whatever form it takes in democracies, into the legislature.

In a moment I will directly address some of the issues that Senator Fawcett raised—and I thank Senator Fawcett for taking the time to raise them in such a thoughtful manner. The United Kingdom, as Senator Fawcett quite rightly points out, has not enshrined transfer of the war power from the executive to the legislature in legislation, although there is a bill that is live before Westminster. In effect, what has been adopted is a convention whereby such a motion would be put to the parliament before a deployment. This was a largely theoretical consequence of the deep inquiries that the British parliament held into the horrific, illegal and mistaken engagement in Iraq that they and Australia participated in.

Unlike the United Kingdom, there has never been an inquiry into the political decision to deploy into war—just a couple of attempts to deflect the errors and the blame to our intelligence services, who we now know were warning executive authorities in the UK, the United States and here in Australia that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and had not been since the early 1990s and that there was absolutely no connection between the Iraqi authorities of the day and the violent fundamentalists who had brought down the Twin Towers and crashed an aircraft into the Pentagon. Nonetheless, the political decision was made—an utterly flawed one—and the inquiries that resulted in the UK and tried to get to the bottom of how such a disastrous strategic error could possibly have occurred have led to a convention which was tested recently when Prime Minister Cameron was proposing to deploy British service personnel into Syria. The parliament rejected that attempt. So it actually has been tested in a parliamentary context in the context of a deployment.

In Australia, as so often happens with these things, a huge part of the problem is the forgetting of history—even quite recent history. Kindred democracies around the world including the UK, the US, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Japan and South Korea have transferred a measure of this responsibility all the way up to the full vote in both houses of parliament—to parliamentarians—which is what we propose. I believe in the genuineness of those who come in here, no matter what your political affiliations. If you come in here and say, as many have, that this is the most serious decision we could commit to as elected representatives, I believe you and I agree. That is why I think you should then put your name to it rather than backing slowly out of the room and leaving it to the Prime Minister's office to decide. The countries I just listed have two things in common: they are mature democracies and they have outgrown that monarchic tradition of just leaving it to the king's prerogative to send his armies into war.

I will briefly touch on the legitimate concerns that senators Conroy and Fawcett raised about why they believe that this bill should not pass. I think these arguments actually have long since been settled. First is the disclosure into the public domain of sensitive, classified information about troop movements or information that the executive possesses because it is in direct communication with intelligence services, military intelligence and so on. It is a fundamental red herring. We do not want to come in here and debate troop movements and tactics. This is the political decision to deploy, not the military tactics that flow from that decision. That is fundamentally important. We are not asking for the Minister for Defence or the Prime Minister to come into parliament and disclose information that would be prejudicial to those troop movements. I think it is fundamentally disingenuous to confuse the politics of a deployment with the military decisions that follow. None of us in here are qualified to then make those strategic judgements that flow, and nor should parliament be involved in that. The decision to deploy is a political one because we do not live in a military dictatorship, and that is the fundamental distinction that I want to draw. When Senator Conroy says, 'You can't possibly ask us to table classified intelligence'—of course not. But don't misread the intentions of the bill. I imagine that Senator Conroy, who has been in this portfolio now for some time, is not deliberately misreading, but I want to make very clear that we are not asking for tactical decisions to be debated in the parliament. It is for thoroughly political ones since very few of us will then put a uniform on and follow these young men and women into the war.

Second, the issue of flexibility and rapid deployment is also, I think, a red herring, because it is very difficult to think of an instance in recent times—Timor being one counterexample which I will get to in a moment—where these issues are not seen coming months in advance. Syria has been in a state of disintegration and, I would argue, profound holocaust—more than three million people have been displaced and tens of thousands killed—and the genesis of ISIS goes back many years. We can see these things coming. The disintegration of Iraq was foreshadowed by analysts and many in the peace movement before the bombing of Baghdad commenced. I do not think it is at all the case that either recalling the parliament for an emergency session or submitting the decision to respectful debate as we are doing today necessarily has to have any impact at all on the deployment schedules. It is unusual going on unprecedented for the Prime Minister to wake up one morning with a phone call that says: 'You need to throw the ADF into a fight. You don't have time to consult the parliament.'

Timor is sometimes used as a counterfactual, so I would like to quote Paul Barratt in evidence that he gave outside the regular parliamentary framework, to the session that we held on the decision to prepare troops for deployment to Timor. He goes into quite a bit of detail about the state of readiness of Australian Air Force and Army forces at the time. He says:

So for most of 1999, between February and September 1999 there was an opportunity to debate the issue in parliament. There were sensitivities involved in that because the Department of Foreign Affairs was understandably concerned about what signal all of this training of military forces was sending to Indonesia … So it's not necessarily a debate you would have wanted to have had had in March 1999, but as you can see when that was evolving, we were in discussions with the Indonesians and the UN about whether our troops could deploy. There was plenty of time to have a debate in parliament about what we were doing and why, but to actually get the approval of parliament not simply to inform the parliament.

That is not someone coming from the margins of debate; that is someone who was involved in decision making on that deployment at the time.

Another myth that, as a senator, I think it is important to dispose of now is the idea that you would submit such an important decision to the whims of the crossbench—or, as I think one interviewer put it the other day—'a tiny minority' in the chamber. That is remarkable because, of course, the way this parliament operates is that, to pass a vote in this place, you need a majority. I ask again those who think putting such a decision to the parliament is risky: if the Prime Minister of the day cannot convince more than half of his or her parliament deploy, is that maybe instructive? Maybe that is important. Maybe there is a counter view. Maybe there are other opinions. It is not that a tiny handful of people would control whether or not Australia deployed. The majority of the parliament should be deciding these things.

I think it entirely likely that if the war power had been vested in this chamber and the other place in recent history we almost certainly would have gone into Afghanistan and we almost certainly would have participated in the first Gulf War, as it was authorised by a UN Security Council resolution, but we might not have gone into Iraq in 2003. That is why I found Senator Faulkner's contribution earlier so curious. We might not have gone to Iraq, but we might have been one voice of reason in the debate that would have staid the hand of the US President and the US administration that was so gung-ho to charge in and declare 'mission accomplished'. It does not seem to have worked out very well, does it? That, I think, is a perfect example of why this is not such a theoretical concern anymore.

It is hard to gather people's interest in such a measure outside of potential deployment, but this is the situation that we find ourselves in today. The idea that 'if it is not broken, we should not fix it', I strongly submit. Before I came into this place I worked as an anti-war campaigner trying to stop the deployment into Iraq. We were getting aircraft carrier movements passing through Fremantle for resupply and return, R and R, before they sailed for the Persian Gulf to fire cruise missiles into a city—a very, very long way from here. In my experience, it is broken and it does need fixing so that that kind of thing can never happen again.

If the Australian government refuses to hold an inquiry into how we got into Iraq then, at the very least, we can prevent that kind of debacle from ever occurring again. I had a very brief period of time in Afghanistan in the late stages of our large-scale deployment there. The politicians have to put on flak vests and helmets and are taken very, very good care of and asked not to wander off and then they get to go safely home. It is not the politicians who actually have to confront the consequences of these deployments by and large.

As Senator Milne indicated, if we are simply rushing in again on the coat-tails of the United States as it attempts to solve the horrific violence that is unfolding in the north-west of Iraq with yet more violence then it is time for a deep breath. I think the vast majority of Australians support humanitarian intervention, but that comes with a warning that humanitarian intervention into the middle of what is emerging as a civil war requires people to take risks such as the rumours that were later quashed that our airlift into Iraq had been fired upon. These are risky situations. Then suddenly from there we go to running weapons into a particular side in this fight—and that is where it starts to get extremely messy—in the absence of any kind of UN Security Council resolution and in the absence, it appeared for a period of time, of proper authorities from the government of Iraq. It certainly appeared that a few important people had been left out of the loop.

The fact is that we are running weapons now into an extremely messy, complex and violent situation. For example, the organisation, PKK or the Kurdish Workers Party as it is translated into English, has been listed as a terrorist organisation largely for attacks within Turkey. It has been listed in Australia as a terrorist organisation for years and remains on the list. They are right on the front line. They are right in the middle of this fight into which we are now transporting weaponry. So you go from humanitarian intervention to running weapons into one side of a complex and violent situation, to support by F18s—and then where? It is to these open-ended commitments that the Abbott government appears to have made to United States authorities without bringing them to this parliament and citing national security and operational security. What cheques have been written in this instance? What is the plan for peace in that part of the world?

The experience in Afghanistan is extremely instructive. The United States government, for a period of well over 10 years, armed the Mujahedeen. The CIA ran a huge covert operation through Pakistan, arming the Mujahedeen because they were fighting communists at the time. Then when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, they stepped that up to a massive operation involving numerous countries and arming oppositions to the soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Then that hardware was turned against the US and Australians decades later because the Mujahedeen mutated into the Taliban. This horrific administration—and nobody would dispute that—then turned their weaponry on the United States government and Australia when we arrived two decades later. Is that what we are opening up now? Because what happens after the press conferences and the media reports of our humanitarian intervention is that people forget and attention moves on, yet those on the ground have to suffer the consequences of our interventions, one after another, supporting this side and then that side. What is the plan for peace? What is the plan for cutting off supplies of funding to ISIS, the Islamic State, from Kuwait, a country that Australians helped liberate not that long ago? What about Saudi Arabia? Has the Prime Minister picked the phone up to the Saudi ambassador to ask what the Saudi authorities are doing to stop huge flows of money, supplies and support to the Islamic State?

What have we done to try and stem the tide of people flowing across the Turkish border to join this fight? Have we spoken to Turkish authorities? What have we done in recent times to try and bring about a stable administration in Iraq that does not govern for one sect or another in an ancient conflict and ancient enmities? What exactly are we doing to stem this one-way slide towards open armed hostilities a very, very long way from Australia in a catastrophic conflict that we helped ignite? Those are the questions that we have.

Is, as some analysts are predicting, armed intervention or cruise missiles with US flags on them exactly what the Islamic State is trying to provoke? If feeds their narrative of martyrdom. Has that been considered by the Abbott government? These are the questions that you can bring to parliament in a respectful way in a democracy and put on the table and expect to get an intelligent answer before Australians are committed to one side of this conflict or another.

In my very brief time in Afghanistan, I was able to witness firsthand the professionalism of the people that we send into foreign theatres of war and their dedication and the risks that they take on our behalf. The questions today are not for them. We do not live in a military dictatorship, so they do not decide when we deploy, we do. It is the civilian government and the politicians who should put their names to resolutions and deployments like this and to whom these questions should be put because, as I was able to see firsthand, if we throw the ADF into a fight they will do their very best. That means the decision is incumbent upon us to not do that unnecessarily, to not expose them to harm unnecessarily, in open-ended conflicts that are very old and very complex. That effectively is the fundamental purpose of this bill. I again thank senators for the way in which they have engaged with this debate so far. (Time expired)

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no greater responsibility for any elected government than to keep the nation safe and secure and to make the decision to utilise military personnel, both domestically and overseas. Under our Constitution this is clearly the responsibility of the executive, who are elected by the Australian voters and accountable to them through the parliament. There is no requirement in the Constitution or defence legislation for parliamentary involvement in most aspects of declaring war and deploying our service personnel. Additionally, our military forces are accountable by longstanding convention to the executive through the Governor-General and not directly to the parliament.

Contemporary practice, however, is that decisions to go to war or to deploy troops are matters for the Prime Minister and the cabinet and do not involve the Governor-General or the federal executive council. I firmly believe that it is neither within the spirit of our Constitution nor the intent of our founding fathers that executive government would effectively abrogate their responsibility for deploying Australia defence forces to the parliament. I have willingly served under both Labor and coalition governments and I understood and accepted that the government of the day was responsible for making decisions that impacted on my service and possibly my life.

The Commonwealth Constitution is the birth certificate of our nation and rightly belongs to the Australian people. It has operated successfully for over 100 years and provides for very clear separation of power within Australia. I am a great admirer of our Constitution. I believe much of its strength actually lies in its simplicity. I believe the comparisons that have been made with other national constitutions are in these circumstances disingenuous as I believe you cannot examine single issues such as this in isolation of the whole of other constitutional documents and the history under which they were created. Unlike rule books of sporting clubs, for example, our constitutional rules cannot be amended at the behest of members of parliament of the day. Given the significance of this issue, the issue that is before us today should not be a matter for this chamber. Those opposite should seek a constitutional change through the people of Australia, not legislative change.

Parliament already does play a significant role in shaping and influencing the commitment of forces overseas. The Prime Minister, by convention, makes a detailed statement to the parliament and relevant ministers provide regular reports to Australians through the parliament. Indeed, a committee of this very Senate, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, in 2010 published a report on similar legislation to that before us today. It concluded that it was not a credible piece of legislation. I will say that again. Our own committee concluded that it was not a credible piece of legislation.

Some of the reasons it gave for this legislation not to proceed included concerns about disclosure of sensitive or classified information, a lack of responsiveness and a lack of clarity about when the bill would apply. These concerns are absolutely still valid today. In fact, I believe that in the current security environment, the need for strong executive power for the use of military force is more necessary than ever, as is the role of the National Security Committee of cabinet. Threats can no longer be easily characterised. Even 50 years ago it was easier to determine who our likely enemy was and what their intentions were. The armies of state dominated our security environment. Today that is no longer the case. Stateless enemies and terrorists using asymmetric tactics are an ever-increasing threat. These threats demand the capacity to respond quickly, flexibly and sometimes without the knowledge of the general public. All of these criteria would be all but impossible if the executive were required to gain the approval of parliament every time it was to commit military forces. That is because this legislation would require a public proclamation to be made.

Despite the assertions of those opposite to the contrary, I know from experience that there is a very high possibility that if these requirements were made public they would put Australian service men and women in danger in the performance of their duties. In fact, we may as well invite our enemies into the cabinet room for the briefing. And it is not just me who thinks this way. Again I quote the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's report on this issue. It reads:

Much of the information under consideration would be classified, for example risks to personnel, Defence or AFP assets, their strength and location, their force readiness, as well as the level of commitment and capabilities of likely allies …

Clearly this information should never be disclosed. We may as well put out a press release to telegraph to our enemies what our intentions are and what we are doing.

We also heard this week and again from previous speakers this morning that we should not rush into the decision to commit resources or equipment to any one side in Iraq. I believe this is the real reason this legislation has been resurrected today. The decision to deploy members of the Australian defence forces has consistently been regarded as a fundamental decision for the executive of the day, and they are elected by Australians to do so. Decisions made by the government can always be tested on the floor of this chamber in line with the parliament's ability to consider and debate important matters of state. But this should not ever extend to the ability to decide where, when and whether we deploy our defence forces. Any such proposed change should rightly be an issue for the Australian people by constitutional change by referendum, not through legislation from a party that is opposed to the actions of the government of the day.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just wanted to make a very brief contribution to this. Most of the arguments have been related by my colleagues and I know we are keen to have a parliamentary vote on the suggestion put forward by Greens political party. But can I just reiterate the points that the two coalition senators have made—and two senators who, I might add, have very long and distinguished military records and who actually understand what is required to embark upon any military operation.

Clearly cabinet and the security committee of cabinet have information on which to make decisions that we in this chamber cannot have, obviously, for obvious reasons. I have to say that at times I have disagreed with decisions made by the government. I remember telling John Howard that I thought it was wrong for us to go into Timor. I told him that in a lift all those years ago, just after Australia had gone there. Fortuitously, I was wrong and he was right and our intervention in Timor proved to be the right one. I was always concerned about the impact on our relationship with Indonesia. But, as I say, cabinet at that time made the right decision. Why they made it? Because they had all of the information, not just the information that I was reading in the public press.

Similarly, I would certainly hope that we do not get into a position where we do commit Australian troops to the current conflict in the Middle East. It is difficult for many of us to understand the connection between Australia and what might be happening internally in almost a civil war in a country a long way away from us. But, again, I make those comments without the benefit of the intelligence, of the arguments that the Prime Minister and cabinet must take into account—our relationships with our allies, the different things that are happening that we in this chamber and most Australians simply cannot be party to. So it is clearly essential that the government of the day, whoever it may be—and fortuitously it will never be the Greens political party—has to make decisions basing it on all the information they have but of necessity cannot share with others.

To have a long, drawn-out debate in this chamber would just be absolutely futile and it is unbelievable that it might be suggested. Senator Ludlam was saying in his contribution, leaving it to the crossbenchers, how outrageous that someone should question that the crossbenchers should make a decision and went on to say that there would be a failure if the Prime Minister could not convince the crossbenchers. Cannot I tell you, Senator Ludlam, as you know from your days in coalition with the Labor Party in government, deals are made. I regret to say that in the last couple of days the coalition, to get through essential processes, has had to make deals with some of the crossbench. I have to say to you, Senator Ludlam, that I am a bit uncomfortable with some of those deals that have been made. But you are suggesting that will go to war and make a deal. 'If you vote us going to war, we'll set up this inquiry into the Queensland government for you.' Or, 'We'll cut the GST off fresh food just to get it through.' Is this the sort of deal-making you want to do commit to the defence of Australia? We know what the Greens political party view on border security is like: open up the borders and let anyone in who wants to come. Heaven forbid that they were ever in a position to make a decision on the defence of Australia and the welfare of the Australian people.

I repeat: I and others will not always be absolutely 100 per cent happy with the decisions that are made, but we have to leave it to those people who have all of the information, who have to take a global view, a whole-of-Australia view on decisions to be made for the protection of our country and our people. For that reason I think the current situation must continue. I endorse the words of Senator Fawcett, Senator Conroy and Senator Reynolds and I would urge that this bill be rejected.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Monday in the Senate I began to outline my concerns about the haste that Australia was rushing to military involvement in Iraq. I do this obviously as a federal senator and a former member of the Australian Defence Force, who may still be serving now if I had not been medically discharged. The other evening I also spoke in the Senate at adjournment on taking over the Veterans' Affairs portfolio for the Greens, and in that speech I outlined my longstanding interest in military history—partly a hangover from spending time at the Australian Defence Force academy but also the fact that both sides of my family have strong military traditions. My father is a Vietnam vet, as are my two godfathers, and my wife's grandfathers both went off to war. I also outlined that my father and my brother and I recently visited the battlefields of World War I on a father and son a trip, using my great-grandfather Clarence's secret war diary. It was one of the most emotional weeks of my life. We actually used the diary to traverse his steps, including the Somme, Pozieres and Passchendaele. We also visited Fromelles and we spent days with military historians touring us around.

This idea of military involvement and war is something I think very deeply about. It is something that has always commanded my attention and my respect, but I must say it also makes me deeply sad when I reflect on warfare and human involvement right across the centuries and not just recently. Of course, the commemoration coming up shortly of Australia's involvement in the First World War is something I also take very seriously and intend to have a lot to say about, including by expressing my respect for the Anzacs but also what I think we should be commemorating.

I have also made it clear on several occasions that our participation in the invasion of Iraq was the very first time that I marched in a demonstration and a protest, as a banker working for Deutsche Bank in Sydney. Also, arriving on the Manly ferry one morning, I noticed that a couple of doctors had painted 'No War' on the Opera House. I arrived at Circular Quay that morning and was on my way to work. It was a very profound moment for me because I was so angry and disturbed about our involvement in Iraq. I say this because not only have I been in the military and I take these issues seriously but, as I said in my first speech, I also worked in the north tower of the world trade and financial centre complex in New York for a couple of years and 9/11 very deeply touched me, as it of course did lots of Australians and lots of people around the world—but I had a very personal connection to that event and what followed.

So I want to make it very clear here today that the words I am about to say do not come from any shallow, superficial political motivation, which has been reported in recent days in a number of newspapers around this country. They come from a very deep place and this subject often makes me very emotional because it is something that needs to be given very serious attention by all of us. In a way, one of the many things I like about the war powers bill is that, if all politicians get to vote on war, then they have a very tangible responsibility to observe in terms of their own involvement in war. In a way, allowing an executive to take us off to war may absolve you as a parliamentarian from the position of responsibility that you have not just to our serving members of the Defence Force, the young people we send overseas, but also to future consequences and ramifications further down the track. Let's be very clear about this: I do not think there is anyone in this chamber who would, privately at least, suggest that Iraq is better off now than it was in 2003, given the instability and given the vacuum that has been created by the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

I believe the majority of Australians are, rightly, concerned about and currently opposed to Australia's military involvement in Iraq, even at the request of an ally like the United States. In fact, in many cases, I think the fact that we tend to jump when the US says to is something that is perceived by Australians as being an issue now.

For me this issue also goes back to the early nineties, 1992, because a number of my friends who graduated from the Australian Defence Force Academy served in the First Gulf War. I remember mates on one of the navy frigates being sent to the gulf passing me while I worked on Rottnest Island. Senator Back, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I know you spent some time on Rottnest Island; I also worked a summer there and I remember seeing their warship disappearing off into the horizon. These were good friends of mine and our involvement in the very first Iraq war was very tangible to me. I remember the concern around the potential escalation of that conflict. But, as is now folklore and myth, though probably also based in fact, the Bush administration at that time chose not to take the conflict past Kuwait and liberate the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein, for the very reason that we have seen the issues developing in this region in the last 10 years: the sectarian violence that was always latent and the divisions and splits that go back centuries on religious and ethnic grounds.

The Greens want parliament to have the power to thoroughly debate and vote on the use of our armed forces. I would like to say on record that I condemn outright the violence and cold-blooded killings carried out by ISIL. This offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq has used instability in the region and the sectarian tensions I just mentioned to grab a foothold. The Iraq government, its regional partners and the global community do need to respond, but right now we do not have a strategy. We do not have objectives, and it is not just the Greens who are calling for caution. Comments have already been made recently in the chamber, including last night about President Obama, but there are a number of commentators, both here and in the US and internationally, including in the UN, who are calling for caution.

The world needs to engage with this situation with eyes wide open, within a UN mandate. Our leaders need to be up-front and honest about all aspects of engagement: the risks, the costs, the chance of success—in fact, what is our definition of success and what is our objective?—and, of course, more importantly, what the long-term plan is.

For me personally, I have recently reflected on language that enlightens the situation rather than obscures it. I mentioned in my speech on Monday that I think what disgusted and motivated me the most about our invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the mediocrity in the media and the public debate on this issue, around the idea of weapons of mass destruction, around the whistleblowers and around the whole debate. As I said on Monday, I see the same situation unfolding now, if not worse than back in 2003. The Australian people deserve illumination and transparency in this heady debate and they are not getting it from the coalition government or from some sections of the media.

With the 2003 Iraq war, the Australian, US and UK governments risked the trust of their people in how they deployed their armed forces. Personally, I feel that this mistrust still lingers. In 2003, we entered Iraq on what has turned out to be a lie, without a strategy and with the simple rhetoric: 'You are with us or against us.' By repeating the rhetoric of 2003, the current Australian government will not rebuild the trust of the Australian people that it is responding to this crisis with sober responsibility. Australia needs to break the culture in media and in politics that tries to intimidate or shut down debate on the use of our armed forces.

In my speech on Monday, I tried to make two points. Words from this speech have been quoted out of context and distorted by some media this week, as I suspected they would be on the day. Firstly, that by using heightened language—what some people may describe as spin, no doubt some also well intentioned—to describe a situation, we obscure insight and our ability to understand what creates the instability that fosters extremism. Without clear understanding, we cannot, as a country, act in the most sensible and prudent way to ever win the peace. I say those words 'win the peace' very carefully because, as we found in 2003, it is easy, perhaps, to win a war—remember the declaration on the aircraft carrier that the war had been won by George Bush Jr. But no-one in here could disagree that the intervention in Iraq did not win the peace. In fact, not long after that hundreds and thousands of people died, including innocent people in the insurgency across Iraq.

In my opinion, the use of the word 'terrorist' is heavily loaded and often obscures debate. I know some have chosen to make mischief with this view in recent days. I believe—it is my reflection—that demonising and dehumanising our enemies is an effective tool for leading a nation to war. History tells us this. But this type of propaganda will not win the peace. This is a lesson of history that both World War I and, of course, the Iraq invasion in 2003 are very clear examples of. Secondly, I wanted to make the point that the military engagement of our forces from outside a region into these sorts of conflicts is often used as a tool by extremists to radicalise others. We risk being used as a recruitment poster for radicals if we misstep.

I would like to reflect on watching the national news last night the awful situation of another beheading being replayed again and again with a man wielding a knife in front of someone who is about to die. Of course, people are going to be horrified, saddened, revolted and fearful at seeing footage like that. But that is exactly what these murderers—these war criminals—want. Yet, it is replayed again and again. I really do not get it. What is it achieving? Of course, we need to know what is going on and we need to have a debate about how to stop this. But I remember from 9/11, watching from where I sat in the building in Hong Kong where I was working—as the stock market was shut globally for three days while Wall Street was gone—and all the media did was report again and again all day. It absolutely did my head in watching this plane rewinding and going back and forward into a building. And the media did it around the terrorist attacks in the UK. There was constant real-time reporting, again and again. I think we need to be very careful in this debate around the use of media promoting exactly what these radicals want. They do want to sow fear into our hearts and they do want us to go over there and fight them. That is as clear as daylight. I would plead to the mainstream media to be very careful about giving them what they want.

The Greens is a party of peace and nonviolence. It is part of our charter. It is there for anyone who wants to go and see it. But I would personally like to state today, as Senator Di Natale stated in his speech, that although I am anti-war and therefore believe war is a last option and should be avoided at all costs, I am not necessarily a pacifist in all cases. The Greens supported the humanitarian intervention in East Timor and, previously, has advocated in this Senate for strong action to prevent the genocide in Dafur. We are all good people who want to do the best by Australia, but we come at this from different points of view. I have absolutely no doubt today that Senator Ludlam's Greens bill to give parliament the power to vote on going to war is designed to do the best thing for Australia. It is designed to make all of us—the decision-makers in here—as accountable as we can possibly be.

As I also said on Monday, when I think about the sacrifice of the Great War and at other wars, men, of course, fight and they sacrifice to win the peace. We remember that and we commemorate that and we will commemorate that next year. But we must remember why they went to war in the first place. In light of the First World War, and, certainly, the Iraq war, the stupidity and madness that led to those wars should have been avoided. It should never have put men—and the women and families that suffered—in a situation where they had to sacrifice their lives. That responsibility and weight rests on us as a parliament and as the representatives of the people. That is exactly why we should have a much more powerful role in saying whether we are committed to war. With the red herring that has been put up today, that somehow we have to make decisions about the tactics of war, Senator Ludlam made it very clear that that is not the case. It is about what leads us to war.

If this increases the debate—and gets around the spin and the media hype, which so often obscures these debates leads to outcomes that may not necessarily be in the long-term interests of this country—then it is a very good thing. It is a very good thing that we are here today debating a bill. It is good not just for us but for our children and for future generations.

I get the feeling—it does not just reflect President Obama's words last night that there is going to be no easy way to beat ISIS—that if we truly want a lasting peace in the Middle East, we have to take a much longer-term view of this, and a much more intelligent and measured view than giving these murderers what they want.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2014. I regret that I will not have the opportunity to speak for 20 minutes because, I know, people in the chamber want to bring the matter to a vote. Therefore I will confine my comments.

I regrettably oppose the bill. I do so for two reasons. The first one is the need to protect our military personnel working overseas. Not always are they in combat zones. If I look at some of the elements of this bill as it is proposed I remember that we do undertake activities outside Australia which are unlikely to lead to hostilities. If you look at the words in this bill you would see that it requires the parliament to be appraised of so much information that it would place at risk our people who are embedded in all sorts of theatres around the world—some of them publicly known, some of them not. They have families back here in Australia, whose addresses could be found. As a member of the Defence family, I would object very strongly to that.

I would say that there would not be a parliamentarian, if they reflected on that, who would not also be very concerned about the wellbeing of all of our forces overseas—whether they are in a military conflict role or not. Indeed, Australia is so well regarded for the quality of our Australian Defence Forces personnel that we need to reflect very carefully because, should this bill be passed, all sorts of information would be made available publicly because the bill requires us to debate these matters in the full parliament, which could place at risk our personnel overseas.

The second point I want to make is that there is a challenge to the current legal authority. For example, there is a question about the legal authority for the proposed deployment. There is the question of a report by the Defence minister about the 'legality, scope and anticipated duration'. Clause 61 makes it very clear that our Constitution gives executive power to the Governor-General, and ultimately to the executive.

I also want to point out, very briefly, that these decisions about deploying our troops or military personnel overseas are quite rightly made by Executive Council—with the cabinet giving the decisions full consideration--without the matters being fully debated.

Why should they not be debated? They should not be debated because of the element, often, in a military circumstance of the likelihood of success. If we are to flag to our potential enemies—our adversaries—exactly what we are doing, how long we are going to be in a theatre and when we are going to exit that theatre, all it will do is to give those opposed to us every chance in the world.

This is not just the case in the current circumstance. You can go way back to Sun Tzu in the Art of War. He said:

All warfare is based on deception.

He also said, very tellingly, way back when he wrote the Art of War:

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

The great German general, Von Clausewitz, said, about surprising the enemy:

It lies more or less at the foundation of all undertakings, for without it the preponderance at the decisive point is not properly conceivable.

He said that in the 1830s, and if this bill passed we would only be talking about the preponderance of decision-making through the full parliamentary process—passing both houses of parliament. We know that surprise lies at the foundation of all undertakings without exception, only in very different degrees according to the nature of the undertaking and other circumstances.

I regret that I do not have the opportunity to expand on these thoughts. I am very strongly of the view that there should be no circumstance in which the parliament of Australia ever placed our troops at risk as a result of the flagging of our intentions militarily. These decisions, quite rightly, should be made by Executive Council, the cabinet and the Prime Minister of the nation, elected for that purpose.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with a sense of responsibility and solemnity that I am rising today to contribute to this important debate on the Australian Greens bill to require the approval of the Australian parliament to send Australian troops to fight in wars overseas.

In debating this idea, we are considering one of the most important decisions that any government ever has to make—whether to send its citizens away to war, to face death and injury and to kill other people—and to bear the moral burden of that. These are significant decisions.

On 15 February 2003, 600,000 people around Australia marched to show their opposition to the Iraq war. The rest, as they say, is history. What is necessary in dealing with matters of this sort of gravity—matters of life and death—is that we take that history, we face up to it squarely, and we are willing to learn from it.

The views and feelings of those many Australians who marched against the war were ignored by the Howard government. There was no substantial debate about the wisdom of following the United States into yet another war. The clamour to take action and invade Iraq overpowered the many warnings from knowledgeable and thoughtful people about the potential consequences, and the clear opposition from so many Australians.

As with other US wars to which Australia has too-readily signed up, the Iraq war has been increasingly discredited—vindicating those who counselled reason and care, at the time. It is clear now that the justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on the lie of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. It is also clear that the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath have contributed to the disintegration we are now seeing in Iraq and provided precursors to some of the anger and burning sense of injustice that is feeding the extremism and brutality that affronts all of us.

The debate on who should be empowered to send Australian men and women to war is an enduring and persistent one, and so it should be. We should never send our troops lightly; we should do so only with clear-sighted knowledge, taking full responsibility that their lives will never be the same again—some will not come home; some will come home but they will be physically wounded; and others will face mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of their lives. None will forget. And so the debate goes on. This is not the first time the Australian Greens have introduced legislation of this nature. We believe this conversation is one that must be had, and we are willing to have it. We will not be silenced by claims that somehow we lack compassion or we support terrorism. They are spurious, hollow, empty claims; they are designed to shut us up and to shut up people who will not go along with the clamour. We will not submit to those efforts. We know that this is the right debate to be having.

This is a highly responsible question about the importance of democratic debate in a democracy and the view that the people who represent Australians have a place in the decision to send Australians to war. How else do we ensure that Australians like those 600,000 who cared enough to get out on the streets in 2003 have their voice heard in this parliament in matters that affect every one of us, sometimes affecting us intimately? How else do we ensure that executive governments are held accountable for their decisions and sometimes the mistakes they make? Merely relying on the next election is not enough in a situation that is as grey and significant as this, because there has been no transparent public process to inquire into the wars that we have been involved in. There has been no full and transparent inquiry into the illegal and open-ended war in Iraq in 2003, and no process to ensure that we have learned from that experience; no process to ensure that this time we will do things better and wiser.

Like everyone, I am deeply, deeply disturbed by what is currently happening in Iraq and what has been happening in Syria. The bloodshed is horrific and in no way would I ever seek to understate the suffering of civilians in that country. How people can live in that environment I think is not only confronting but also inconceivable for all of us. Islamic State is a brutal, barbarous organisation. It is life-defying and it defies the very common humanities of the world's peoples and the world's religions. There is no doubt that something must be done. The question is what. That is the question we have to significantly discuss. I will not subscribe to the tempting but simplistic view that something must be done and war is something, so it must be done. We must ask the fundamental questions before embarking on a war: what will it achieve; will it make things worse? That is the respectful and reasoned debate we must have.

The Australian Greens are strongly supportive of humanitarian assistance for the Iraqi people at this time, with the dropping of water, food and other supplies. During the winter break I had the privilege of visiting the Amberley air base in Brisbane as part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. I had the opportunity to see Australia's air force at work at the biggest air base in Australia, and I was able to meet with the personnel there and get a better understanding of and empathy for the work that they do—the job that they do on behalf of all Australians. Indeed it was a privilege, and I came away with a much better understanding. I also had the wonderful opportunity to fly in one of the C17 aircraft—the aircraft often used for delivering loads of humanitarian and other supplies. Some of the C17s are being used in distributing the humanitarian aid that we have been dispensing. They can take supplies or they can be set up with hospital wards. I saw and understood how motivated those pilots and the personnel around them who provide support were in doing their important, lifesaving humanitarian work on behalf of Australia. Certainly it is absolutely important that we do that work.

But military action is another question altogether, and it is an issue that we must approach with the highest level of care, with reasoned thought about why we are doing it and what the consequences will be and what the plan is. We also have to have adherence to international law, because if there is no international law there is nothing. If we do not stand by international law we have no right to ask others to do the same. We must ask the question: is this another case of Australia blindly following in the footsteps of the United States? Australians are rightly concerned about this. They have a right to be. We are already dropping weapons and munitions into Iraq for the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the likelihood of deeper military involvement seems more likely each day. There is little doubt that, if requested, Australia will agree to the USA's request for further military engagement in Iraq.

In Australia, the executive's decision to declare war and deploy forces overseas has always been taken before Parliament has debated the issue.    Traditionally, parliament has been asked to endorse decisions that have already been taken. Though the opposition of the day has usually supported the government's actions, there have been occasions when they have at least initially opposed Australia's involvement in conflicts. Since 1901, neither the Australian Constitution nor defence legislation has required the government to gain parliamentary approval for the decision to deploy forces overseas or, in the rare cases that it has occurred, to declare war. There have been attempts since 1985 to remove the exclusive power of the government to commit Australia to war.

In 2010 the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee reported on an Australian Greens bill—the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2008 [No. 2]. The committee stated:

The committee is not in any way against the involvement of both Houses of Parliament in open and public debates about the deployment of Australian service personnel to warlike operations or potential hostilities. It agrees with the views of most submitters that the Australian people, through their elected representatives, have a right to be informed and heard on these important matters.

The Commonwealth Constitution does not say expressly who is responsible for declaring war or deploying troops. In addition, there is no requirement in the Constitution or defence legislation for parliamentary involvement in most aspects of declaring war and deploying troops. Indeed, for several decades after the Commonwealth came into being, in 1901, the Australian government itself was unsure as to whether it could even declare war against another country without British government approval.

Former royal prerogatives, including the power to make war, deploy troops and declare peace are now part of the executive power of the Commonwealth, exercised by the Governor-General on the advice of the Federal Executive Council or responsible ministers. Contemporary practice, however, is that decisions to go to war or deploy troops are matters for the Prime Minister and cabinet and do not involve the Governor-General or the Federal Executive Council.

With Australia generally adhering to the Charter of the United Nations, which requires member countries to seek UN Security Council approval before engaging in hostilities, past comment and debate in this space has focused on the deployment of troops overseas, once hostilities have been declared by the UN. On a number of occasions, the Australian Greens, and the Australian Democrats before us, have pursued legislation that would require parliamentary approval in most circumstances before Australian troops could be deployed overseas. In September 2008, my colleague Senator Scott Ludlam, who has spoken so eloquently on the bill today, sought to repeal section 50C of the Defence Act 1903 and to replace the section with a new provision that would require parliamentary approval before troops could be deployed. Once again, we are bringing legislation to the parliament, with the hope of a real and meaningful debate.

The Australian Greens' bill would be consistent with principles and practices of in other democracies, including

Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey, where troop deployment is set down in constitutional or legislative provisions. Some form of parliamentary approval or consultation is also routinely undertaken in    Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway. Our ally the United States has a similar provision that subjects the decision to go to war to a broader forum. Section 8 of article I of the US Constitution quite clearly says, 'Congress shall have power to declare war'. In the wake of the disaster in Iraq, the UK's Westminster parliament now holds the de facto war power, a new convention that prevented a rushed deployment into Syria earlier in 2014. The real challenges posed about the timeliness of decision-making and the degree of confidentiality that would be required can be met, as is obvious from the number of mature democracies that embrace a more inclusive approach to decisions about war.

The debate we are having is not a new debate but one that constantly evolves and gains depth as global contexts change. It is an important debate. I am grateful that we are once again having this discussion, but I am disheartened that the debate has not matured much in recent years. If the lessons of Iraq in 2003 and the escalating, brutal violence we are currently witnessing in that country do not now compel my parliamentary colleagues to engage in this debate, it is difficult to imagine what will.

As someone with a long personal history of activism, I know that people protest when they feel unheard—when they feel ignored by decision makers and those in positions of influence. With this Greens bill we can ensure all Australians a voice in this place through their elected representatives—not just at an election, after the event, when the die is cast, but at the very time of a momentous decision to be made about whether this country goes to war. This bill will ensure there is a real conversation about what it means to send Australians to war and whether it is the appropriate thing to do.

We must always remember that when we send people into conflict on our behalf their lives will never again be the same. That is why there are significant numbers of veterans and members of the Australian Defence Forces who agree with this Australian Greens proposal. I know this because I have consulted with them, I have met with them and I have spoken with them during the three years that I held the veterans affairs spokesperson portfolio for the Australian Greens. It is not surprising, because they truly understand what it means to go to war. They truly understand who will bear the consequences of that decision. They do not want the decision to go to war to be made in sometimes what is a political context, when they think that it is important that all Australians should be able to have their voices heard through their elected representatives in a truly democratic way. By having the decision made in that way, it confers more legitimacy on the ultimate decision of a country to send its people to war. What a profound responsibility we would all share if this bill were to become law.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to briefly speak to the Defence Legislation Amendment (Parliamentary Approval of Overseas Service) Bill 2014. I believe that the current system and process Australia has in place to make a decision to go to war is a flawed process and could be improved. I also believe that the people involved in making a decision on whether to go to war—the current executive—are not capable of making sound decisions. However, after consulting with people who have risked all and served their country in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe the Greens proposition contained in this bill goes too far and places unnecessary constraints on the executive. I believe that the constraints on the executive proposed by the Greens, as written in this bill, go too far.

The executive needs to be empowered to continue to be able to make quick decisions and make quick deployments in order to properly protect national security. However, there has to be a point at which a military deployment or commitment is discussed and debated in the houses of parliament—perhaps in a joint sitting—in order to ensure that we always maintain mission relevance. And there should not be just one debate. After consulting with veterans, I believe that parliamentary debate should always occur at a point in time when the nature of the military operation significantly changes, for example, when it goes from a humanitarian action into a stabilisation phase or a war-fighting phase.

David Day, one of Australia's famous authors, has written a book called The Politics of War: Australia at War 1939-45 from Churchill to Macarthur. It will benefit this debate if senators reflect on the words of David Day,

which put this debate into historical perspective and context. He wrote:

The outbreak of war therefore raised the question of how far Australia should go in supporting Britain against Germany where the military threat to Australia was limited, while a possibly imminent and very direct threat loomed large inthe Pacific.

There was no question in the mind of the Australian prime minister, Robert Menzies, that when Britain was at war so too was Australia. As soon as he had heard Chamberlain's declaration of war on the radio, Menzies made his own sombre announcement of Australia's involvement. There was no triumphant flag-flying or the grandiose protestations of imperial loyalty that Australian leaders had used at the beginning of the First World War. The ravages of that war had removed any illusions Australians might have entertained about the nature of modern warfare. With the trenches of the First World War in mind, Menzies declared that it was his 'melancholy duty' to announce Australia's involvement as a simple consequence of Britain's involvement in events over which Australia had no control. After relating at some length for his radio audience the history of the dispute between Germany and its neighbours, Menzies beseeched 'God in his mercy and compassion' to deliver the world 'from this agony'.

Unlike Canada or South Africa, where the declaration of war was left to the respective parliaments to deliberate upon, Menzies was sufficiently confident to embroil Australia in the war as soon as he learnt of the British declaration. The British viceroy of India similarly plunged his charge into the distant struggle without reference to his subjects. According to Menzies, 'where Great Britain stands there stand the people of the entire British world'. When he was criticised for abandoning any semblance of Australian independence, he pointed to the popular sentiment for war, that the British people needed quick assurances of support and that the King's declaration of war automatically created a state of war between Australia and Germany. This last justification was the one that most determined Menzies' action. His legalistic background, combined with his sense of empire, could not conceive of the possibility of the King being at war in Britain but not in Australia. As it happened, the King remained monarch of neutral Ireland throughout the war and was not at war in South Africa and Canada until the parliaments of those dominions had met and decided to throw in their lot with Britain's.

The point I have taken from Mr Day's writing, which I believe to be true, is this: the current political system we have in order to determine whether we send our troops to war is not perfect and is flawed. History shows it can be improved. However the Greens' proposition on such an important issue is rushed and needs time for proper consideration. While the PUP and I will be voting against this bill, we will be open for discussion with all parties in the future in order to find a better system and procedures for determining how and when we go to war.

In closing, I would like to remind the chamber about the need for Australian governments to discuss and disclose to the Australian people the true cost of war. As one veteran quoted to me, 'The cost of war is much more than the cost of blankets and bullets.'

I renew my calls for a royal commission into the toxic leadership of our military, the cover-up of abuse and sexual assaults, and the dysfunction within the Department of Veterans' Affairs. We have sent our troops to war and failed to care for them after they have returned. The government cannot be allowed to get away with the cover-up of the veterans' suicide rate. I will not support the Greens' bill but will happily talk about amendments that provide a third path.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak again in this debate in order to sum up the debate on the bill for the Greens and I seek clarification as to whether the 11:50 am time is a hard line or whether the delay in the start means that this debate will finish a bit late.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the finishing of this debate as a hard marker is 11:57 am.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to sum up this debate on behalf of the Australia Greens. In so doing, I thank all senators for the serious and sincere way in which they have engaged in the debate. I am very disappointed to hear that Senator Lambie, who up until yesterday was so committed to making sure that the parliament had a say, has changed her mind. I am glad to hear that the Palmer United Party is prepared to discuss it because, dare I say, if this bill is not supported today it will be reintroduced and we will keep on debating it. It has been going on for 30 years, so I hardly think that it is rushed. It has been through many Senate inquiries.

I just want to go to the heart of the matter. This bill has taken over 30 years. It did not get brought into the parliament specifically in relation to the current circumstances in which Australia looks like being committed to a multi-year military campaign in the Middle East without a strategy. This bill has been something that we feel strongly about in principle, and I will just address the principle first.

It is critical that the parliament determines when we deploy our troops to military action overseas. As my colleagues have summed up quite strongly, those other countries that have exactly the same principles and practices ranging from Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey right through to the United States also have the provision. Let us not hear that this would be a dangerous thing to do. It is a recognised democratic principle in those countries.

The other points that I want to make in relation to the rebuttal are as follows. It has been suggested by some senators that this would require secret or military intelligence to be brought to the parliament. Of course that is nonsense. No one is suggesting that secret military intelligence be brought to the parliament or that the deployment and the organisation of operational matters be brought to the parliament. Nobody is suggesting that. That is a furphy in the extreme. To start with, this is about the principle of engaging in a military campaign. Thereafter, those matters become the decision of the military to give effect.

In terms of flexibility, again, that is another furphy because the bill quite clearly gives appropriate exemptions which provide for the practicality of the situation—that is, where the parliament cannot meet immediately, it provides for the Governor-General to be able to make a proclamation regarding the declaration of war, provided that the parliament is then recalled within a period of two days. So that is a furphy as well. They are all furphies. It is a way of trying to make that fundamental decision: should it be left to a Prime Minister and the executive or should it come to the parliament to make a decision to put our serving men and women in our armed services in harm's way. That is the principle on which we are voting here today. In a democracy, who should decide? The Greens believe that it is the parliament. We will keep arguing that it is the parliament and keep bringing back the bill as a critical way of dealing with this matter.

Finally, since it is pretty clear that we do not have the support of the parliament in this, we need to ask some very serious questions here. One of those is that it is a nonsense to say that there will not be boots on the ground. It is a nonsense to say that this conflict is going to be solved without a strategy for Syria. So I put to the Australian parliament: you need to think very clearly about this because the United States will clearly be making a strategy that will have to include Syria, and Australian decision makers will need to think beyond northern Iraq into Syria. How long is this going to take? What is the extent of our involvement? The same thing goes for the Ukraine. I am fearful that we have a government that is racing into engagement behind the United States, without a serious discussion of how this is in Australia's national interest.

I ask people in the Senate today to consider this: in a democracy, should the parliament decide? When the parliament decides, the question should be: is this in Australia's national interest? And the objectives and risks need to be taken into account. I would urge senators to support this bill.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be now read a second time.