Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

On Wednesday this week I spoke in this Senate regarding the disgraceful, inaccurate article entitled “Labor has a history of blind pacifism” written  by the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, and published in The Australian on  2 May 2006.  

I said in my speech that the article “distorts facts and history, draws erroneous conclusions and ignores the substantial evidence that contradicts his biased analysis.”

Tonight I intend to demonstrate further distortions and misrepresentations of history contained in Mr Downer’s article.  I will also refute other outrageous and offensive propositions advanced by the Foreign Minster particularly in respect to our current involvement in the Iraq war and its aftermath.

In his attack on John Curtin and the Labor Party Mr Downer wrote:

He [ie: Curtin] had consistently been a pacifist, wanting to appease tyrannical regimes, and called for Australia to remain firmly isolated from the world’s great struggles. In response to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, for example, Curtin opposed sanctions and stated that ‘the control of Abyssinia by any country is not worth the loss of a single Australian life’.

There are some interesting points to make about this spurious claim.

Firstly, I can find no record of Mr Curtin ever actually making this statement in the Parliament.  The words quoted by Mr Downer were made in a speech to the House of Representatives by Mr Forde, Leader of the Opposition, on 23 September 1935 when the Parliament debated a statement by the Prime Minister, Mr Lyons, on the Italo-Abyssinian Dispute.

Secondly, and consistent with the rest of Mr Downer’s article, the statements are taken completely out of context and twisted to denigrate John Curtin and the ALP.

Let me quote from Mr Forde’s speech.

Mr FORDE (Capricornia) [5.29]—Australia has been looking to the Prime Minister to make a definite pronouncement as to the attitude of his Government on the Abyssinian crisis. The other dominions outlined their attitude weeks ago. On the 8^th September the Prime Minister of Canada was reported to have said, “Canadians will not be embroiled in any foreign quarrel in which the rights of Canadians are not involved. We have bought and paid for security and peace and we mean to have them”. The Defence Minister for South Africa stated that no son of that country would fire a shot without the people being consulted.

Although I admire the efforts of countries that have been striving to settle the dispute in a peaceful manner, and particularly the way in which Great Britain has endeavoured to have conciliation used in this dispute, I strongly hold the view that Australia should not allow the statesmen of any other country to determine this country’s course of action. The Federal Government should instruct its delegate at Geneva that Australia will not be a party to war. Surely there is no more reason why Australia should become involved to-day than when four provinces were wrested from China by an original member of the League of Nations. If it were not for the oil-fields of Abyssinia, and other rich natural resources desired by great vested interests, there would not be these mad manoeuvrings for war. There would be the same apathy as was shown regarding the invasions of Manchuria.

What Minister Downer fails to acknowledge in his article is the similar attitude of the then Lyon’s UAP Government to this dispute.  The Lyon’s Government believed that it was a territorial dispute and should be sorted out by the League of Nations rather than by the use of force or resort to war. The following is part of Prime Minister Lyon’s statement to the Parliament that day:

The Commonwealth Government, while convinced that the upholding of the principles of collective security embodied in the League of Nations is essential to the world’s peace, desires to point out that none of the provisions of the Covenant has been violated by either Italy or Abyssinia. The Government feels that discussion on these matters should not, at this juncture, assume that either of these countries will violate any its obligations in this regard. It therefore seems unwise either to anticipate any breach, or to announce in advance the course of action to be followed by the Commonwealth Government in contingencies the nature and circumstances of which cannot at present be foreseen. While fully recognised the gravity of the present situation, the Government hold very strongly that it ought not, either by word or by action, to embarrass those who are earnestly striving to effect a peaceful settlement.

Thirdly, when Japan had earlier invaded Manchuria in 1932, ignoring the League of Nations and the principle of territorial sovereignty, the world, including Australia, simply ignored it.  Thousands of Manchurians and Chinese were massacred during those years of brutal occupation but the governments of the USA, the UK, France, and Australia did nothing.  They turned a blind eye and mumbled the usual diplomatic concerns.

It is rather ironic that on that same date, 23 September 1935, just prior to his statement to the Parliament on the Italo-Abyssinian dispute, the Prime Minister Joe Lyons made another statement welcoming a goodwill mission from Japan to Australia.

It pays to check the record.  Maybe Mr Downer thought he could get away with these gross misrepresentations and selective quotation.  This article is deliberately deceitful.  It ignores the appalling record of conservative Governments in Australia prior to World War II whilst making false claims about the ALP’s and John Curtin’s record. When Australia faced its darkest hour in 1941 the people turned away from Menzies and the conservatives and looked to John Curtin and the ALP for leadership.  He did not let them down.

Mr Downer has concocted his revisionist history to support his Government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq and our continuing presence there.  He promotes the view that strong leadership is measured by how often you go to war irrespective of the cost and the justification.  Apparently, if you don’t support his view, than you will be branded as weak, an appeaser, and at worst, a supporter of totalitarian regimes.

Given this attitude one is entitled to question what has Mr Downer and the Government done to end the appalling genocide that has occurred in Zimbabwe and the Sudan. Why didn’t they act earlier to prevent the massacres in East Timor following the vote for independence – massacres that were predicted?  The answer of course is that they did nothing until after the carnage.  Should they be labelled appeasers and supporters of totalitarianism? 

The Liberals, of course, are expert in getting Australia involved in war.  On occasions their gung-ho attitude has led to disaster and/or an inglorious withdrawal.

In 1956 Liberal Prime Minister Menzies was determined to play a major role in the Suez Crisis. His bumbling diplomatic intervention was an international embarrassment and his support for Britain and France’s invasion of Egypt was a monumental blunder.  Fortunately no Australian troops were involved and therefore no lives were lost.

Vietnam, of course was a disaster.  The decision to commit combat forces, supposedly at the request of South Vietnam but which was later proved to be a lie, ultimately cost the lives of 500 Australians (185 conscripts) and 3,129 wounded (1039 conscripts).  The conscripts were young men who were not even old enough to vote. 

In the1966 Federal Election the ALP was vilified.  Anyone who opposed the Vietnam War was labelled a communist sympathiser, a coward or a traitor. Yet by 1971 the Coalition Government had to withdraw our troops from that disastrous futile war.  Many of those veterans still carry the physical and mental scars today.

When it has been justified the ALP has supported the commitment of our armed forces to overseas conflicts.  I refer to the Korean War of 1950 -1953, the Malaysian Emergency of 1950, the First Gulf War in 1991 when the Hawke Labor Government was in power and, more recently, the conflict in Afghanistan.  Similarly, the ALP has always strongly supported the deployment of troops and other personnel such as the AFP to assist in peace-keeping operations in many parts of the world and particularly in our own region.

The Government now has our armed forces stretched to the limit due to our involvement in the Iraq war and its bloody aftermath.  The Government’s decision to join the war in Iraq was based on a series of false assertions.  We were told by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister that the invasion of Iraq was not to bring about regime change - it was not about removing Saddam Hussein.  Yet in his article Minster Downer attacks the ALP claiming that “Beazley thought that we should have left Saddam Hussein in power; we were wrong to help our allies get rid of him.”  

What hypocrisy!  It was actually the Prime Minister Mr Howard and Mr Downer who said that there would be no need to invade Iraq if Saddam Hussein would just tell the world where his weapons of mass destruction were hidden.  In other words the Prime Minister and Mr Downer were quite happy to leave Saddam Hussein in power. 

We were told that we went to war because Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that would be used to promote terrorism.  Yet after three years no such weapons of mass destruction have been discovered. 

We are now told that the reason for our presence in Iraq is to help bring democracy and peace to the Middle East.  In other words, it was really about regime change after all.  After three years following that regime change the situation in Iraq has become a nightmare.  Dozens of civilians are being killed every day, usually blown to bits by suicide bombers.  Many are kidnapped and executed by terrorists and criminal gangs. The total number of civilians killed so far amounts to tens if not hundreds of thousands.

Over 2,500 US troops and over 200 British and other forces have lost their lives.  Religious fanatics from both the Shia and Sunni factions are provoking a civil war. Iran has become more emboldened and more belligerent. Osama Bin Laden still roams free.  Peace and democracy in the region are further away than ever before.

What is truly amazing is that Mr Downer, in his article, has the temerity to make the following statement:

Australia needs leaders who have the moral clarity to see right from wrong. We need to stand up for what we believe and live up to our responsibilities, as a significant country, to contribute to the global struggle.

Mr Downer’s attack on John Curtin’s legacy in his article in The Australian follows a similar speech he delivered on 17 May 2005.  The speech on that occasion was in honour of Sir Earle Page, the former leader of the Country Party.  Given Mr Downer’s vicious attack on John Curtin I thought it might be interesting to read what Sir Earle Page said in Parliament on 5 July 1945 following the death of John Curtin.  This is part of his tribute:

Sir EARLE PAGE (Cowper)—I desire to offer my deep sympathy to Mrs. Curtin and her children, and also pay homage of respect and gratitude to John Curtin for his great public services to Australia, the Empire, and the world. His premature death shocks every one in Australia. Especially does it shock those of us who were privileged to know him and to serve alongside him in this Parliament for so many years. He had died  as a direct result of the tremendous tasks and responsibilities that war has entailed. He is a war casualty, as much as is any fighting man.

John Curtin came into this Parliament with a well-stored mind and a very keen intelligence. It was a matter for pleasure to see how, with increasing responsibilities and experience of administration, his mental stature and grasp of affairs progressively grew. He became a spokesman for Australia, of whom we all were proud. He was one of our most gifted orators and masters of expression. He was a great parliamentary leader, and a distinguished servant of the people who he loved.

I extend my profound sympathy to his widow and family, to his party, and to the nation at his untimely passing when he can be so ill-spared.

Sadly Australia’s leader today, Prime Minister Howard, and his Foreign Minister Mr Downer, do not have the wit to see what a horrible mess their hubris has caused.  All they can do is resort to revisionist history and character assassination to try and elevate their own status and justify their decisions. 

Samuel Johnson was certainly correct when he said “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”