House debates

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

Statements on Indulgence

National Security

11:33 am

Photo of Andrew NikolicAndrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge the Gray family visiting from my home town of Launceston. It always lifts my spirits when I have people from northern Tasmania visit the parliament. Thank you for coming along.

I would also like to acknowledge that excellent contribution from the member for Hinkler, who quite presciently said that the first priority of any government is the safety and security of its people. This objective is at the heart of the government's response in recent months to the ruthless and brutal threat posed by transnational terrorism. As we have seen, it is a threat that transcends borders.

I would also like to say how fortunate we are to have the Labor Party, in a bipartisan way, standing shoulder to shoulder with us in confronting that threat. I thank the Labor Party. I have seen that bipartisanship in particular in the parliament's Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, of which I am a member.

Recent commentary about Australians carrying out suicide bombings in the Middle East, terrorism arrests in Sydney and Brisbane, planned executions in our streets and police being attacked is chilling. What that demonstrates is that the threat is both international and domestic.

I submit that there is virtue in the outcomes that we seek from the Prime Minister's recently announced prepositioning of military forces in the Middle East. The Prime Minister has announced FA18 combat aircraft, an E7-A Wedgetail early warning and control aircraft, a KC30A refuelling tanker, a special forces task group to assist and advise, and Australian personnel integrated in US headquarters to make sure that we are coordinated with our ally and other partners.

Importantly, military forces always need prudent planning time in order to pre-position themselves. The prudent planning, warning and pre-positioning of our troops means that we are now well placed to contribute to an international coalition to counter some of the barbaric activities that we see on our television screens all too regularly.

Subject to the Prime Minister's decision to commit forces to specified and agreed missions in Iraq, if we distil what we are trying to achieve, we can break it down into two key areas. The first is the humanitarian objective of containing the terrorists' barbaric savagery in Iraq, and the second is to ensure that the terrorists do not gain a foothold—that they cannot actually preside over ungoverned spaces from which they can then decentralise the mayhem.

By working with Iraqi and Kurdish forces, we assist their control of the security situation. By degrading the terrorists' capabilities, we protect Iraqi citizens from potential genocide and our own people from a murderous death cult with global ambitions. I repeat that no nation is immune.

It is undoubtable that the threat to Australia is clear, present and pressing. At least 60 Australians that we know of have put their allegiance to brutal murderers ahead of their duty and obligation to Australia and its people, and 100 or more Australians are actively supporting them from home. We know that some have received instructions to carry out acts of barbaric savagery on our own streets, random murders in our own streets of Australia.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:37 to 11:45

I note that the foreign minister has cancelled more than 60 Australian passports on national security grounds. But the savagery of the terrorists has also given rise to a growing international unity, a realisation that doing nothing is the greatest danger. Doing nothing emboldens the terrorists, creates ungoverned spaces, ignores potential genocide and reinforces the inevitability that ISIL's brutality will be exported. The Bali and Jakarta bombings proved that, as did the counterterrorism arrests in recent weeks. I mention the Bali-Jakarta bombings in the context of the broader regional threat. I speak here of the risk posed by South-East Asian fighters who go to Syria or Iraq, and then return to regional transnational organisations like Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf group.

Given the relative weakness of institutional structures in some regional nations, the freedom of action that those committed and upskilled fighters enjoy is reason for additional concern. In Australia's case, that is because of the enormous number of Australians and other Westerners who transit and/or holiday in our region each year. So far, informed estimates suggest that there are potentially hundreds of Indonesian fighters in Syria. Almost certainly that figure is growing, perhaps fast. Professional recruitment videos call on Indonesia's youth to answer the siren song of transnationalism and they are likely to stimulate further interest within disaffected communities in Indonesia and elsewhere in our region. The threat of regional separatists is an inter-regional dilemma, with known terrorists finding their motivation, inspiration and training in the Middle East before returning to apply their skills at home. Such individuals can lie dormant within their home countries but still possess the heightened potential and confidence to strike at soft civilian targets, including Western visitors and tourists.

It is fair to say that Australia has been fortunate to date in being able to confront and successfully check would-be terrorist combatants on distant foreign soil, and to do so with relatively few casualties. Regrettably, neither a distant battlefield nor a low casualty toll may always be possible in what we must remember is the longest war—the all too conveniently forgotten global war on terror. I am pleased to see in the aftermath of the important Indonesian national election that both our nations have worked together to understand and cooperate more closely and consistently towards the goal of a safe and stable region.

I am appalled that in response to some of the realities I have highlighted that the Greens party and their fellow travellers engage in ideological hand-wringing and calls for historical reflection. Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, based in my home city of Launceston, has said, 'I think we need to find better words than "terrorist" and "terrorism" because, to me, this implies a very one-sided view of the world.' He went on to say, 'Often our forces could be seen by Iraqi civilians as being terrorists.' The Senator was quite rightly lambasted for these views. The Greens' do-nothing approach in relation to events in Iraq, ignores the self-evident truth that action is required not further talk by politicians. No amount of talking to terrorists under the Miranda tree in my home state of Tasmania will avert IS from their strategic aspirations. In my view, Greens leader Christine Milne has, once again, dealt her party out of the rational policy debate.

The Greens also demand endless parliamentary debate and a parliamentary vote to deploy troops. We already have parliamentary debate on these issues. And in relation to a vote, neither the Constitution nor defence legislation supports the Greens position. The use of the military dimension of national power has always been a prerogative of executive government, which in turn answers to the parliament. As is customary, the opposition has been briefed by national security experts and, as I said in my introduction, stand shoulder to shoulder with the government in supporting the necessity for the action we are taking.

Only the Greens choose sideline sloganeering in place of responsible leadership, yet on every occasion they fail to tell the Australian people what their alternative is, and a do-nothing approach is the worst option on this occasion. This is the same Green party that regularly demands military action to protect whales in the Southern Ocean but illogically refuses to accept the need for military force to protect thousands of people at risk of genocide or to degrade the IS capability so it does not land on our doorstep in the future. Moreover, the suggestion by the Greens that our military commitment makes us more vulnerable ignores history and the advice of experts like former ASIO head, David Irvine, who reject their claim.

Australia was a target of terrorist groups well before these military deployments. Indeed, the first intercepts relating to threats against Australia, which resulted in the recent arrests, were first detected last May, well before any thought of military action. History has proven that appeasement does not work, particularly when you are confronting illogical, irrational actors like the ones in Iraq, who demand subservience to their perverse ideological ends.

The government is taking strong action in responding to this threat. At home we are equipping our security and border protection agencies and we are moving legislation through the parliament to ensure they have the means at their disposal to act and respond appropriately. Australia is aware of the heightened threat level at the moment, with security carefully considered at places like airports, prominent buildings and events. Our recently announced military commitment is legal, just and consistent with our national interests. In company with a growing international coalition, we are responding in a measured and proportionate way to an aggregated terrorist threat that seeks to establish a Middle Eastern caliphate and then to decentralise the mayhem. Doing nothing is not an option.

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