Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ayres, and those opposite for the forbearance.

Military action should never be undertaken lightly, and I understand the concerns and reservations people have in this chamber and elsewhere about the military action currently underway. But I believe that in this situation such military action is both necessary and justified. It is not as if diplomacy has not been tried and failed on many occasions. The United States was engaged in direct diplomatic negotiations with Iran as recently as last Thursday. There have been multiple multilateral and unilateral efforts over a decade and more seeking to address concerns about Iran's behaviour, its pursuit of nuclear enrichment and its violation of UN Security Council resolutions. This is a regime that, since taking power in 1979, has done its utmost to foment instability in its neighbours, to export terrorism around the world and to repress its own people and deny them hope.

Just last month we saw the regime kill most likely tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets demanding their basic freedoms, demanding the right to a livelihood, demanding the ability to live with basic dignity and hope. I don't see how you can, on one hand, condemn this regime for treating these protesters with such disregard for their life but on the other hand condemn the mechanism and means to finally hold the regime to account. You need only see the people coming out onto the streets in Iran, at danger and risk to themselves, to celebrate the military operation that is underway against their country, that is targeting regime targets, targeting military facilities. It's targeting IRG facilities. They are coming out to celebrate this because, for the first time in generations, they have some hope for a better future. We should not be standing in the way of that; we should be supporting it. Does that mean the results of this operation are preordained or clear? No. Does it mean the future is uncertain? Yes. But at least this gives the Iranian people a chance and a hope.

I want to briefly say something about the consular response. Many Australians now are concerned, distressed, troubled because they're unable to get access to flights to leave the Middle East. I know DFAT is working hard. I know consular officials in the region are working hard. But I think the government should have done a better job in preparing the public for this. The risks of this conflict have been all too foreseeable over the past few weeks. Last week the Prime Minister was given an opportunity to air those risks to the public. He spent the whole week talking instead about the potential of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to succeed the throne. That was a misplaced priority. (Time expired)