George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, I think that is really a question that is beyond the scope of this debate, and my own views about the IRA and other terrorist organisations existing elsewhere in the world at different periods in the history of the 20th century are really not, I suspect, either well informed or germane to this debate. You are asking me about ISIL; we are dealing with ISIL in a particular way. We are dealing with it militarily in coalition with our partners in the United States, in Europe, in Russia—the entire world, Senator Lambie, not just the Western world, not just the democratic world. The entire world—virtually every nation of the world—is united in determination to defeat and destroy ISIL. That is why, in September last year, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 2178—which, if not unanimous was certainly near to unanimous in calling on all nations to assist in the destruction of ISIL. That is why, when in February of this year I went to the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism and we discussed ways in which to defeat ISIL-inspired domestic terrorism, what was very striking to me was that the entire world was represented. Virtually every country in the world was in that conference chamber. There were countries that were actually at war with one another that were sitting beside one another in this conference chamber because virtually the entire world is united in its determination to defeat and destroy ISIL.