Page 40 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (4.22): Mr Speaker, like Mrs Grassby, I shall keep my remarks brief; but, unlike Mrs Grassby, I support this motion entirely. We have heard some comments from the speakers on the other side about this motion being a cheap political trick, et cetera; that we introduced this motion in the Assembly this afternoon so as somehow to score points off the Opposition. Mr Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. The simple fact is, as the Chief Minister said in his statement, that this is a matter of great concern and grave concern to many citizens of the ACT. There are very few people in the Territory who are not having their lives affected at this very moment by the war in the Gulf, not least of all the five members of the Labor Party opposite.
Some of the comments made by Mr Berry when he ambled out of the sudden caucus meeting that had been convened by the Labor Party opposite to determine their position after this motion was introduced were, I think, frankly, rather inane arguments. They provided very little insight into the reasons why anybody would be opposed to this motion, which endorses the actions of the United Nations and endorses the actions of our Prime Minister in his role of implementing Australia's response to those United Nations resolutions. This motion also, I believe, endorses and supports the actions of our service people who are currently serving in the Gulf area in various forms, particularly those who are serving in the naval forces in the Gulf.
One of the comments that were made by Mr Berry that particularly annoyed me was that he said that people on this side of the Assembly were praying for blood; that we were somehow hoping to have a super duper war of some kind in which many casualties were going to be incurred. He said that our solution to the problem is not to negotiate but to simply go in and have a battle of some kind, an enormous land battle in which thousands and thousands of people are going to die, all for no purpose.
Well, like Mr Berry, I agree that war in itself is a dirty, filthy and obscene thing - something which should be avoided whenever and wherever possible. The answer to those comments made by Mr Berry - supported, I presume, by other members of the Labor Party - is that the war can be ended immediately, right now, if the forces of Iraq are withdrawn from the independent nation of Kuwait. That is the simple and undeniable truth of the matter. The United Nations forces involved in the conflict have said on numerous occasions that the hostilities will cease immediately if Iraq will remove its forces from what, by now, is the impoverished and broken nation of Kuwait. So I think that is the answer to that argument.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .