Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. What is the Australian government doing to help eliminate cluster munitions?

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. In May this year, Australia joined 111 states at the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions to negotiate a legally binding convention to prohibit cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. Australia joined this process because we very strongly believed that, having seen the devastation caused by landmines throughout the world, the time had come for the international community to address the terrible, indiscriminate effects of cluster munitions.

Australia, both in the months leading up to the convention in Dublin and also at the convention itself, worked very hard to achieve a treaty that not only achieved very important humanitarian objectives but also safeguarded Australia’s national and national security interests.

I think it is well recognised that the new convention on cluster munitions is a significant humanitarian achievement. It prohibits cluster munitions that randomly scatter tens or hundreds of so-called submunitions that have no self-destruct capability or capacity and which pose a long-term threat to innocent civilians for years to come after hostilities have ceased. It does not, for example, apply to modern precision guided weapons with self-destruct capabilities such as the SMArt 155 anti-tank munition, which was recently acquired by the ADF.

Importantly, the convention also contains provisions to assist the victims of cluster munitions, their families and also their communities by including provisions which go to the clearance of land to make land free from cluster munitions. The convention ensures that cooperation between nations through peacekeeping and other joint operations with nation-states who do not become a party to the treaty is able to continue. This so-called interoperability is very important to Australia’s long-term strategic, security, defence and peacekeeping arrangements.

The government has conducted a thorough policy, legal and technical review of the convention, and I am very pleased to advise the House that Australia will sign the convention. Australia will be among the first nations to sign the convention when the treaty opens for signing in Oslo in early December this year. I think that that action by the government and by our nation is consistent with the proud record that Australia has in this area. Australia, for example, was an original signatory to the mine ban convention in 1997.

Australia has been a longstanding supporter of mine action, committing $75 million over the period 2005 to 2010 to remove mines and assist victims, and this is built on the $100 million which was made available by Australia in the decade leading up to 2005. In the last financial year, 2007-08, we have provided nearly $19 million for mine action projects in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Iraq.

Early today I was very pleased to meet with the former member for Cowan, Graham Edwards, who is in the gallery today, and with other representatives of the Australian Network to Ban Landmines to do a number of things: to advise the network on the government’s decision to commit to signing the treaty in December this year, to compliment the network on the good work that they do and also to underline Australia’s ongoing commitment to mine action.

I am also pleased to indicate to the mine network and to advise the House that Australia today will make a further contribution of half a million dollars to the United Nations Mine Action Service, UNMAS, for humanitarian clearance of cluster munitions in Lebanon. This builds on the $2.5 million which Australia has already contributed to UNMAS doing the United Nations vital humanitarian work in this very important area.