Carmen Lawrence (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)

notes that, on 7 September 2001, the United Nations General Assembly declared that the International Day of Peace should be observed annually on the fixed date of 21 September, as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence;

(2)

notes that United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has repeatedly urged member states of the United Nations to support the observance of global ceasefire on the day, arguing that a global ceasefire would:

(a)

provide a pause for reflection by the international community on the threats and challenges we face;

(b)

offer mediators a building block towards a wider truce, as has been seen in nations such as Ghana and Zambia;

(c)

encourage those involved in violent conflict to reconsider the wisdom of further violence;

(d)

provide relief workers with a safe interlude for the provision of vital services and the supply of essential goods;

(e)

allow freedom of movement and information, which is particularly beneficial to refugees and internally displaced persons; and

(f)

relieve those embroiled in violent conflict of the daily burden of fear for one’s own safety and the safety of others;

(3)

supports the Australian organisations that intend to hold vigils, concerts and walks on 21 September this year, in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane;

(4)

calls on the Australian Government to actively support the observance of a ceasefire in Afghanistan, East Timor, Iraq and the Solomon Islands on 21 September of this year by ensuring that Australia’s armed forces:

(a)

do not engage in hostilities for the duration of 21 September, unless provoked to do so in self-defence;

(b)

promote the observance of a global ceasefire for the duration of 21 September; and

(c)

promote the practice of non-violence for the duration of 21 September; and

(5)

requests that the Australian Government encourage other nation-states to follow its lead.

The terms of that motion indicate the UN General Assembly’s declaration that 21 September should be an international day of peace observed annually as a day of global ceasefire and nonviolence. In my view it is a very important initiative that deserves to be supported by this parliament and by the government.

I will begin by quoting a man who knew war all too well, former US President Dwight D Eisenhower, who said in 1953:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

I think that is the message we should take today.

Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, surveyed the legacy of the 20th century and labelled it a ‘violent century’; a century which encompassed two world wars, countless civil wars, a senseless chain of assassinations, civilian bloodbaths in many armed conflicts, the inhumanity in the gulags, the tragedy of Hiroshima and the vile stain of the Holocaust. It is impossible to hear that list without shuddering.

But, sadly, the 21st century is shaping up as no less bloody, from both state sanctioned and terrorist violence. Despite near saturation coverage of the continuing violence there is still little public reflection on what actually happens when armed conflict is used to resolve disputes, on who pays the price or on what can be done to avoid war. We should all turn our attention to that last question. It is estimated that during the last century over one hundred million people died in war in over 50 countries around the globe. This figure is a dramatic increase over earlier centuries and is about three-quarters of all the estimated war deaths since 1500 AD; most of the violence and killing has been in the last 100 years. Add to this the lives cut short in the aftermath of war by disease and malnutrition and the many millions more murdered by politically repressive regimes and terrorist attacks, and you arrive at a staggering loss of life.

This loss, sadly, has been sanitised and rendered ‘normal’ at the same time as the way war is conducted effectively removes the distinction between combatants and civilians as targets of war. Indeed, civilians have been deliberately targeted, and not just by terrorists, as they were in Dresden, Cologne, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Civilians accounted for five per cent of all victims in World War I, 50 per cent in World War II and nearly 90 per cent in recent wars. Much of this increase is the result of large-scale bombing, particularly from the air, described by one commentator as ‘the most barbaric style of warfare imaginable’. Hilter’s bombing of Guernica produced near universal revulsion; such attacks today pass almost without comment, justified as ‘surgical’ or precise despite the ‘collateral damage’ of death, disability and wholesale destruction.

Over the last 50 years we in the developed world have been largely insulated from this suffering since most of the wars have been in the economically impoverished Third World. As memories of the catastrophic reality of the Second World War fade, war is enjoying a resurgence of respectability as an instrument of foreign policy, with no apparent concern by our governments for the devastation it inflicts on so many lives and hopes, and no thought either, it seems, for the potential for revenge and hatred to grow from the seedbed of war. We should not accept the inevitability of war, and that is what is important about this day of global ceasefire and nonviolence. Deadly conflict is not inevitable. It does not emerge inexorably from the human condition. We are not condemned by our natures to settle disputes with violence, and there are no mysteries about why violence erupts. The problem is not that we do not understand the roots of deadly conflict but that we do not act. Such action should be based on the concept of prevention, confronting both the inequalities and intolerances which fuel conflict and the manufacture of weapons which enable deadly conflict.

Instead of signing up to an increasingly deadly expansion of militarism, the Australian government and all governments should be playing their part in ensuring that the international community appreciates the increasingly urgent need to prevent deadly conflict, especially given the increasing availability of weapons of all descriptions. It is our task in this parliament to draw attention to the need for peace, to resolve conflicts without violence and to make sure that the United Nations is in a position to facilitate peace and that on 21 September there is a total global ceasefire so that people can build towards a wider truce in areas where there is conflict and reconsider the wisdom of further violence.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Graham Edwards (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary (Defence and Veterans' Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleague the member for Fremantle for bringing this motion to this House today. Today is indeed an opportunity to think about and consider the International Day of Peace. The day actually falls on 21 September but this House has the opportunity to consider it this week as we do not sit on that particular date. To me it seems fitting to the memory of those innocent people who lost their lives in the destruction of the twin towers in New York and other targets in other places on this day in 2001, just five years ago, for us to be speaking to this motion for the International Day of Peace.

It gives us time to pause and to offer expressions of sympathy and sorrow for those who lost family members, work mates and friends in the horrendous and barbarous attacks of 2001. Several Australians lost their lives on that day, as did people from other nations. I think there were about 80 different nationalities affected in that horrendous event. Our heartfelt sympathy goes to all of those families who suffered losses and to all of those people who lost friends and work mates. But for the American people it signalled both a personal loss and a symbolic loss, and our thoughts are with our American friends on this day.

War and acts of violence affect everyone, but it seems to me that they impact disproportionately on the lives of innocent men, women and children. War destroys and damages people, property and the natural environment. For many developing countries already struggling to improve their quality of life, war deprives people of the basic necessities of life, legal rights and ultimately, of course, the loss of human dignity.

Working for global peace is the responsibility of every living person. This is not somebody else’s responsibility; it is ours. I think I might have reflected in the past that when I was a very young child, less than 10, I asked my father why we had wars, because I was born at the end of the Second World War and I recall my uncles coming back from the front. My father turned to me and said, ‘Why do you fight with your brothers and sisters?’ He did not have to say another word. The message was a very graphic one. I think about that often and thank my father for that lesson because wars are about not respecting others; they are about having disagreements and ultimately using violence and force to resolve differences and they are about a lack of tolerance for other people.

The responsibility for global peace rests with every one of us. Each of us can play a role. At the foundation of achieving global peace is respect for human life and a commitment to upholding human dignity through equality of opportunity and through tolerance. The International Day of Peace is a time for all of us to stop and reflect on the task of working toward a peaceful world, and each person can participate. I think on the United Nations website on this day it says, ‘Peace begins with ourselves, living in harmony with one another and with the earth.’ I do not think I could summarise it any better than that.

There is no doubt that achieving global peace is a formidable task, but Australia is committed to peace building in a very real way and to conflict resolution in many parts of the world. None of us, as the member for Fremantle said, should feel defeated because preventing war, which prevents peace, is difficult. Democracy and good governance play an integral part in upholding human dignity and equal opportunity, and the Australian government has an outstanding record of participating in the strengthening of democratic principles and in the governance of the Asia-Pacific region in particular as well as many other parts of the world.

I conclude by personally acknowledging and thanking members of the Australian Defence Force who are currently serving to bring about peace in many parts of the globe, including Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, Sinai, the Middle East, Sudan and the Solomon Islands. May I say how much we appreciate the task that they do and that we wish them all safe missions and a speedy return home.

Graham Edwards (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary (Defence and Veterans' Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the points of the motion moved by the member for Fremantle says:

... provide a pause for reflection by the international community on the threats and challenges we face;

Some of the threats and challenges that we face are in some of the horrific weapons of war which people have a potential to use. I want to speak briefly today on the issue of cluster bombs. They are horrific weapons which cause as much, or even more, damage to civilians, particularly kids, as to soldiers involved in conflict or war—to the degree that, in the face of the horror and suffering caused by the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and Afghanistan, many international peace motivated organisations are now coming together more and more strongly and calling with louder and more unified voices for an end to the use of cluster bombs. More than 50 international organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Mennonite Central Committee, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, are now calling for a cessation of the use of cluster bombs.

They are joined in Australia by organisations like the MiVAC Trust. MiVAC was launched in Australia in March 2002 and is a non-profit, non-political and non-sectarian charity. It is the initiative of former soldiers who served in Vietnam who saw firsthand the results of landmine explosions and were aware of the trauma for civilians who lived and worked close to minefields as well as the danger to their fellow soldiers, including mine clearance teams.

MiVAC initially appealed to Tasmanian Vietnam veterans, but it now has members from many fields and all political persuasions. Although members have undertaken to promote landmine awareness, MiVAC is primarily a fundraising body that raises funds to assist landmine survivors. My congratulations go to Rob Woolley and Gill Paxton for the work they are doing. They have called for a rethink of the use of cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs are dropped in big canisters. They are an imprecise weapon. They are usually dropped when civilians are not around. These big canisters fall from the sky, where, at a certain height, they open up and smaller, deadly bombs the size of hand grenades fall and cover many acres of ground. Of course, there is a failure rate. Sometimes this failure rate is estimated to be as high as 20 or 30 per cent. Those smaller bombs often lie in the ground for months or years, sometimes hidden and sometimes not, and they kill, wound, maim and injure many civilians, particularly children. I think it has been highlighted that in Afghanistan bombs that have fallen have become particularly attractive items for kids because in colour and in size they are so like the food aid parcels that are dropped to feed starving children. These are a horrific weapon of war.

There is a big movement today of non-government organisations that have joined together to call on nations of the world to do away with the use of cluster bombs. I know the Australian Senate has debated this issue, and parliaments in countries like Denmark and Norway, and the European Parliament, have all addressed their attention to how these bombs might be banned in the future.

I think on a day when we consider peace all around the world, on a day when this parliament considers a motion moved by the member for Fremantle and on a day when we give thought to those horrific events that occurred in America just a few years ago, we should also give some thought to the suffering of civilians around the world. (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to address the private member’s motion relating to the upcoming International Day of Peace on 21 September. Today being the fifth anniversary of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and also the Pentagon, it is a timely opportunity for all of us in this parliament to reflect on the efforts of many countries around the world to bring about a more peaceful world.

I would like to begin by stating that every person around the world wants to live in peace and harmony. To be able to live in peace is a fundamental human right. Violence achieves nothing. Instead, it has many detrimental effects, including severe losses of life and psychological damage, particularly for those witnessing war. The death of family and friends and living in poverty are other negative effects of unrest in any country.

There is no denying that achieving peace globally is an enormous challenge. Political, religious and cultural disagreements are a fact of life in many areas and many societies across the world and, regrettably, often the major cause of conflict. The Australian government recognises the overwhelming desire for global peace among all humanity.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 1.45 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed on a future day.