Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will not hold Senator Feeney responsible for Australia's involvement in the Iraq war, where we as a nation were joined at the hip with George W Bush. I will give him that.

Isn't there a difficulty here that, by virtue of the defence in 72.41, it is fundamentally inconsistent with part 1(c) of article 1 of the convention? That is the first question. I have a second question, in order to save time and be helpful to the committee. Reference was made to JSCOT, to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, and it expressed concern that some of the terms in the convention are not clearly defined and may provide an avenue by which Australia could participate in actions which may contravene the humanitarian aims of the convention. Did the government seek advice from JSCOT once this bill was drafted? I have no idea what the answer is, but was there a subsequent JSCOT inquiry into the provisions of this bill, particularly in relation to the interplay between 72.41, 72.38, part 1(c) of article 1 of the convention, and the preamble to the convention, which says:

… put an end for all time to the suffering and casualties caused by cluster munitions at the time of their use, when they fail to function as intended or when they are abandoned