Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to endorse the report of Senator Fawcett and acknowledge the courtesy that he's extended to me this evening and throughout the work of this delegation. I emphasise the value of this parliament participating in this NATO conference and the value of us as a country being able to participate in this matter. I just would like to add a few points and reiterate some comments that I made—in greater detail, perhaps—last November, on 13 November. I was able to participate more through the Political Committee, although I did participate in some of the other committees that Senator Fawcett presented directly to.

NATO faces a range of challenges now that arms control has effectively broken down and the most powerful states of the world—namely the United States, Russia, China and India—have ceased supporting multilateralism. I particularly noted—and the point was made on numerous occasions—that President Trump's often quoted statement, 'The future belongs to patriots, not globalists' had become a slogan for more populist nationalists everywhere, and that the same rapid technological change that had transformed the structures of industrial economies was also posing new challenges for the way in which states intervene in each other's affairs. The conference also gave particular emphasis to the role of climate change and the way that the Antarctic and, particularly, the Arctic were now being opened up as new sources for exploitation of military deployment. All of this poses serious problems for NATO, which it felt was under considerable pressure to deal with the stated claim that it was a global champion of democracy.

With very few exceptions—for instance, Portugal under the Salazar dictatorship—NATO members had been democracies, but they've always sought to uphold human rights and the rule of law. That simply can't be said today. They have contrasted themselves in the past with authoritarian regimes, and that, of course, can't be said today. That discussion in the assemblies made clear that the most perplexing threat to democracy now comes from within NATO states themselves, and some NATO members, especially Hungary and Poland, have governments that are increasingly authoritarian. They're not single-party states but they are governments that curtail basic freedoms, such as freedom of the press and the rule of law. The discussion found that populist governments were taking expression from the resurgence of reactionary nationalism within Europe and that this in itself was becoming a major threat to the fundamental assumptions about the way in which NATO had seen itself as an ideal of liberal democracy, and it threatened the principles that I think were the foundations of the way in which NATO had operated. Not all of these countries are yet full members of NATO, and part of the difficulty for NATO is resolving these inherent tensions. A lot of the rhetoric that we hear to date in Europe is in fact straight out of the 1930s. Given the recent anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe, it is deeply disturbing that the resurgence of those forces should now be given legitimacy in some of those regimes.

I particularly welcomed the opportunity to participate in this delegation. I thank Senator Fawcett and the committee secretariat for their support. This has been a very worthwhile experience, and I think the parliament should take every effort to continue the participation in this conference.

Question agreed to.