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

by leave—I rise to take note of the government response to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade entitled Inquiry into international armed conflict decision-making. Here we are, two years after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, a conflict that saw over 100,000 people killed, millions displaced and billions spent. We are 20 years from the illegal invasion of Iraq and 50 years on from the Australian withdrawal from the Vietnam War. That's half a century of catastrophic decision-making by reckless politicians, half a century of death and destruction, and, apparently—if you look at the contents of this report—not a single lesson has been learned.

The Australian community knows clearly that this nation's process for going to war is broken. It is undemocratic. It lacks any accountability or transparency. The Australian community knows this, and that is why 80 per cent of them support a parliamentary vote prior to the deployment of troops overseas. Every—I almost said 'every Australian Labor Party MP'; I wish it were so. Even many Labor Party MPs know that this is the case, and that is why they went to an election committed to an inquiry into this process. Yet, instead of an actual review into the system, we got a facade, a process that was broken from the beginning when the foreign minister and the defence minister told every person who would listen, during the inquiry period, that they did not support reform and that, therefore, there would be no reform, regardless of the findings of the report.

Lo and behold, within the contents of this report, what do we find but empty, toothless recommendations that leave the largest hole in our system of going to war completely unaddressed. It is an outright refusal for reform to a system that has hurt so many people and caused so much suffering from Canberra to Kabul and everywhere in between. The outcome of this report is that Australia will retain its reputation as one of the world's most secretive democracies. Make no mistake—there can be no parliamentary protection stopping us from entering another illegal war if the two parties in this place refuse to learn the lessons of history.

The outcome of this report, of the government's inaction, is that we have wasted yet another opportunity to put the democratic protections in place that would prevent the next Iraq and Afghanistan from occurring. That is what the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have passed up in this report. You had your chance to place a check on executive power. You had your chance to ensure that, if Peter Dutton ever gets the keys to the Lodge, it is not within his power—

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Steele-John, you know you need to use the correct titles.

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

If the Leader of the Opposition in the other place is ever referred to as the Prime Minister of Australia, you in the Labor Party had the chance to make sure that he is never able to unilaterally take Australia into war alongside the United States, and you passed it up.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Steele-John, I remind you to address your remarks through the chair.

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

Through you, Chair. This government has signed Australia up to a new alliance with America and the United Kingdom, two countries infamous for disastrous foreign policy decision-making, which has then become our problem as a nation because you have taken us to war along with them, and you have been able to do it because of the absence of a parliamentary vote required before the deployment of troops. You had an opportunity to fix it and you failed. You failed. You have put us, once again, at risk. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.