Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House about plans for a new United States communication facility in Western Australia and the contribution this will make to the Australia-United States alliance and the economy of the town of Geraldton in my electorate? Is he aware of any alternative views?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for O’Connor for his question. As a Western Australian member, I know he will be particularly interested that the government has agreed to host at Geraldton a ground station for a United States military communication system, which is known as a Mobile User Objective System. It will be hosted on the same basis as all other Australia-US joint facilities and operate on the basis of our full knowledge and our full concurrence. These arrangements apply at Pine Gap and the joint geological and geophysical research stations, which are both near Alice Springs, as well as at the naval communications station, the Harold E Holt communication station at Exmouth, where the US also has access.

These facilities in the new Mobile User Objective System are fundamental in underpinning and giving practical effect to the United States alliance. The government is strongly committed to the alliance as the key guarantee to our nation’s security.

I would have assumed that the Labor Party would welcome this initiative, but this morning, when Labor spokesmen were asked about it, their response was silence. Labor spokesmen did not come out and embrace this initiative as we would have expected. The Labor environment spokesman, the member for Kingsford Smith, was asked on five occasions at a press conference this morning whether he supported this facility. On five occasions the member for Kingsford Smith refused to answer. Indeed, it is interesting that the member for Perth, the member for Lilley, the member for Lalor—who, after all, is the deputy leader of the Labor Party—and the member for Grayndler all refused to answer a question and give endorsement to this proposal.

Labor members are always happy to give their views on anything and they have been urged by the Leader of the Opposition to do what he used to do—that is, just talk endlessly in the media. One journalist said to the member for Kingsford Smith: ‘But you’ve sung songs before about your opposition to US bases on Australian soil. Have your views changed since then?’ He said:

My views are clear and they’ve been clear since I have come to the parliament. I am here as a member of the Labor party to talk Labor policy.

But never an endorsement of this joint facility, never an endorsement of these bases.

Let us be absolutely frank about this: the member for Kingsford Smith was always a supporter of the closure of American bases in Australia—always. There he was at Alice Springs in the 1980s with fellow travellers demanding that Pine Gap be closed, close all the joint facilities. A great man of principle—‘US forces give the nod, it’s a setback for your country’—

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hardgrave interjecting

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

Order! The member for Moreton!

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The simple fact is that the Labor Party thinks that the United States should be defeated in Iraq, it thinks that these joint facilities are really not acceptable in Australia, and yet the Leader of the Opposition tries to pretend that he is a supporter of the US alliance. It is typical of Labor under the Leader of the Opposition: it plays all ends against the middle.