Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that general business notice of motion No. 693, which relates to nuclear weapons abolition be taken as a formal motion.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there any objection to this motion being taken as formal?

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is an objection.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is disgraceful. I seek leave to make a brief statement.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can save the government and opposition whips the opportunity of reading into the record a condescending statement about how this is a complex foreign policy matter. I presume that that is the reason that the Senate is not even going to be able to express a view on this matter. The motion effectively goes to the fact that Australia, together with 155 other states, participated in the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons on 8 and 9 December last year.

Eighty-five nations have signed that pledge, and this is about nuclear weapons abolition—weapons that have no strategic military utility but would have a massive humanitarian impact were they ever used. Eighty-five countries have signed that pledge. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who has—

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. I cannot hear Senator Ludlam, there is so much talking going on in the chamber. Can you please bring the chamber to order.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I accept your point of order. There is too much noise in the chamber and the Senate will come to order.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Fraser said, in 2009:

There has never been a better time to achieve total nuclear disarmament; this is necessary, feasible and increasingly urgent. We are at the crossroads of a crisis involving these worst weapons of terror, presenting both danger and opportunity.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the view of the government that complex foreign policy matters are not best dealt with by a simple binary yes-or-no situation. Australia is committed to nuclear disarmament and has a long record of working effectively with partner countries and through the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review process to advance this aim. It has been the position of successive Australian governments to urge all the nuclear weapon states, including the United States and Russia to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate nuclear weapons in a way that does not compromise Australia's national security or international security. Banning nuclear weapons will not lead to their elimination. A step-by-step approach, which involves all nuclear weapon states and adopts practical and realistic measures, is the most effective way to achieve disarmament.

The prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons is a complex matter and should not be reduced, as I said, to a simplistic Senate motion without debate.