Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the winter break I found myself reading theIndependent newspaper, a newspaper published in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Bangladesh is an exceedingly poor country that is facing terrible problems in relation to climate change. My eye was drawn to an article in the paper called ‘Can microcredit defeat poverty?’ by Dhiraj Kumar Nath, and in particular to this paragraph, which bore quite some relationship to what I have been saying for some years now about our own Indigenous communities:

Besides, absence of the ownership of the land and farm equipment can create a situation where empowerment of poor becomes well nigh impossible. When such a situation is coupled with the absence of good governance, protection of the rights of the poor turns out to be a far cry.

That is not the English that we would write, but that is the English that is in the newspaper. The writer was making the point about the importance of land ownership and good governance in Indigenous communities—and, boy, doesn’t that strike a chord here in Australia. I then found myself reading an article in the Australian newspaper titled ‘Dodson’s reform call’, which started:

Indigenous leader Pat Dodson has entered the push for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal identity and culture, arguing for a new “Australian dialogue”.

Why is it in Australia that all of the community leaders, including us, cannot actually think about what achieves a result for Indigenous Australians? Why do I worry that in 100 years time the plight of Australia’s Indigenous people will be the same as it is today, with no change? I look at all the good things that we do in land rights, reconciliation, stolen wages, stolen generation—there is always something—but what do they amount to when you go and have a look at people on the ground in an Indigenous community? The kids still do not go to school. The health outcomes are far worse than for white Australians. The alcoholism, domestic violence and corruption that occurs! It is an art form in Indigenous communities. The nepotism that goes on! If you are not part of the controlling family, you are nothing.

Why is it that if we look forward to an Australia in 100 years time we will not have changed any of that? The answer is that we have to stop talking in terms of these really high ideals and start talking in terms of things that change the situation. We have to have a new approach to Aboriginality and Indigenous issues in Australia. Yes, the NT intervention is a great start and I thank the Rudd government for taking up where the Howard government left off, but there is much more to be done. I keep saying to my community: ‘Don’t spend time and hundreds of thousands of dollars on court cases on issues that don’t change life in an Aboriginal house. Get on with it. Do things that you can change. Look at all of the current issues that apply and do something.’ I ask the leaders of this country to come with a fresh approach to make sure that we leave a legacy that we can be proud of—not just a lot of spin, a lot of words and a lot of platitudes that result in no change to the lives of the many hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Australians who have that situation to look forward to.

I want to also recognise Warrant Officer Class 2 Alan Bungate, who is with us in the Main Committee tonight. Warrant Officer, I want to say some words about the Australian Defence Force, if I may, and you are part of that. You are part of the fine body of men and women who make up the ADF and serve our country so well. Over the past few years much speculation has been thrown around about the war in Iraq. Some of the observers weighing in on the discussion will tell you that the war has probably been a bad idea or maybe Australian troops should not have been ordered in there at all. I do not believe this to be the case, for many reasons which I will now outline to the Main Committee.

In late 2005, for the very first time in a very long time, 10 million Iraqi citizens streamed to the polls to determine their future democratically. A new constitution was then enshrined with a popular margin of four to one. The new constitution contained many fundamental human rights, the kinds of human rights which had been denied for many years under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Iraqi elections in November 2005, as well as the introduction of human rights, would not have been possible under Saddam Hussein.

Information recently released proves that conditions within Iraq are improving dramatically. The information points towards the efforts of the troops from the coalition of the willing. A recent article in the Sunday Mail suggested that the number of US combat deaths in Iraq had fallen to the lowest level of casualties since the March 2003 invasion. Another example of the progress of the war in Iraq is in the decrease of violence on the streets. It is very significant. In the period 15 May to 3 June 2007, 316 incidents of violence occurred in Iraq. However, this can only be seen as an example of the recent successes of the war, as over the same period this year the number of violent incidents fell dramatically to just 68.

The decrease from 316 to 68 violent incidents includes a fall in all types of attacks. Sniper shootings, once a popular method of attack in Iraq, have seen a dramatic downturn. The once continual spree of suicide bombers has also massively decreased. Insurgent attacks have been reduced significantly and even car bombs, which we remember used to explode a number of times a day, have been detonated far fewer times. These are all positive indicators that the war in Iraq has seen some major progress and success.

But the progress does not stop there. Dr Kimberly Kagan, the President of the United States based Institute for the Study of War, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that where the US was unequivocally losing in Iraq at the end of 2006, it is just as unequivocally winning today. Dr Kagan then went on to insist that by February 2008 America and its partners, including Australia, had accomplished a series of tasks thought to be impossible. The Sunni Arab insurgency and al-Qaeda in Iraq were defeated in a number of important provinces, with the remaining leaders and fighters clinging to their last urban outpost in Mosul.

But it is not just through combat that the Australian troops have contributed to rebuilding Iraq. As we are all aware, the efforts to aid the people of Iraq through the development of infrastructure and agriculture have included vital projects such as the planting of crops and upgrading of agricultural facilities and installing electricity generators, power transformers, water treatment works, graded roads and schools as well as providing other basic services including medical supplies. The help by Australian troops in training the Iraqi army to look after themselves has been very, very successful.

Australians currently believe that we have withdrawn from Iraq. That is not so. We currently have about a thousand ADF personnel still in Iraq and the region supporting Iraq. It is just a furphy for people to believe that Australians have not continued to provide help and assistance to that country. All of the abovementioned services have been made available thanks in part to the Australian troops on the ground in Iraq and the former Liberal government back at home. Until late last year Australia had a government that was intent on improving the lives of Iraqis after helping them remove Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship. That help will go on, although the Australian people have been asked to believe that that help has not continued. I thank the men and women of the Australian Defence Force in the Middle East region and in Iraq who have contributed so much to helping the good people of Iraq restore their lives.