Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the Iraq War.

Next month marks 20 years since the Howard government's decision to participate in the catastrophic US-led invasion of Iraq, a war that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and left millions more with a trauma that they still live with and that will last for generations. During the course of this question time period I put a simple question to the foreign minister and to the government. I asked whether it was the government's view that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law and convention. The response was, 'We have no further comment.' It's 2023, as though to suggest to this chamber that the Iraq War and its implications are not something that the people of Iraq and that the people of Australia continue to live with to this day.

Five million orphans were created by the Iraq War. Hundreds of thousands lost their life. Today, the direct result of the war is still the third-largest cause of death and the largest contributor to child mortality. The infrastructure, the services, the health care and the education of that sovereign nation were devastated by a military campaign in which this Howard government, this Australian government, participated in willingly.

This month leading up to the anniversary of the invasion must be a period of reflection and of hard introspection. What happened? Who is responsible? What are the impacts that people are living with today? How do we ensure it never happens again? Who made the decision to go to war? Who gave the order? How did we end up there? How is it that, when 92 per cent of the Australian population opposed an illegal invasion, their government was able to go ahead and do it anyway? And how is it now that an Australian Labor Party government comes before this chamber in the context of that reality with no comment?

I yield my time.