Page 2460 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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Operation Desert Shield was $53 billion. The wharfies in Wollongong refused to load pig iron onto Japanese ships shortly before the Second World War and, with great irony, many of them then marched off with the 8th Division, which was recruited in great measure in the Illawarra, to perish at the hands of the Japanese. Why cannot we live with a tradition in our community that is very Australian - that of being opposed to supporting armed struggle and the resolution of conflict by war? There is nothing wimpy, there is nothing peacenik and there is nothing exclusively Australian Labor Party about taking the view that we need not promote the arms trade.
I certainly accept the need for armed responses in certain situations - and they are classic, philosophical arguments. There is no way that I would show the other cheek, were someone to attack my home. The arms struggle is coming closer to Australia. Malaysia has just bought 300 US Hawk fighters worth $400m. There will clearly be offsets and attempts by our armaments industry to get into servicing and other arrangements. We are moving closer to those countries in military cooperation. I spent a few years working with the West Papuan refugees and, upon hearing Bill Hayden at one stage, in his then role as Foreign Minister, describe the plight of the Irian Jayans, particularly in the lower Merauke region, as mere cultural disturbance when I had one client with bayonet wounds with me on Thursday Island, I felt cold about our country.
The only way good people - and people who serve their country in direct or indirect ways - can stand up in respect of arms struggles and their terrorism is to, in every small way, support principled moves. I believe that the move that Mr Connolly, his party and his caucus have taken is principled. It is one of those rare occasions when I applaud something that they have done. Perhaps there could have been a little more forward consultation. A little more could have been done by way of calling the various parties in and explaining the view and explaining the positive aspects to Canberra, rather than just dropping it on them. I am not convinced that it was handled as smoothly as it could have been. But I do not want to be churlish and take anything away from the principle that it has set up.
I would dearly love this Australian Labor Party of the ACT to put a little more pressure on the Australian Federal Government over the situation in Timor - the dreadful running sore in that place - and the continuing environmental, economic and military depredation of the West Papuans, right next to our country. You can fly there in an hour or so. Yet we have a lot to say about the Gulf. I believe that the Australian Labor Party in the ACT, if it is serious and has not got into this just as a flash affair, should now take issue with the Hawke Government on its increasing support for governments in our near regions that use violence as a means of subjugating their genuine liberation struggles and proper movements in those countries.
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