Page 2462 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I reiterate - and this is the problem with Mr Moore's motion - that Aidex was established here to provide a Canberra showcase for international and Australian companies wishing to sell defence equipment to the Australian Government. It is not to promote the international arms trade as such.
There are a number of other inherent contradictions in Mr Collaery's speech as well. He, I think quite rightly, talked about the effects the motion might have on our joint defence arrangements with New Zealand. I noted also with interest Mr Collaery's recent trip to Japan. We have talked about Hiroshima Day here today. There was Hiroshima and there was Nagasaki and a lot of people were killed there - I think all up about 130,000. However, had that not happened and Japan been invaded, over one-and-a-half million allied servicemen and millions of Japanese citizens would have lost their lives.
Mr Collaery: It is a separate issue, Bill.
MR STEFANIAK: It is not a separate issue, Bernard; nor is your point - and it is a very valid point - about Japanese fascists running around wanting to rearm. Of all countries, Japan - one of the fascist powers of World War II - unleashed a reign of terror throughout Asia. In China, 40 million Chinese were killed by Japanese aggression, starting in 1931 in Manchuria. In fact, not only was it killing people in Manchuria, it was also actively promoting the supply of opium to make that whole province a dope riddled society. There was the rape of Nanking.
Mr Berry: Were they not killed with guns?
MR STEFANIAK: They were killed with opium; they were also killed with guns; they were killed with bayonets. They were killed in all sorts of horrible ways, Mr Berry. So, I think the Japanese people were revolted as much as anything else by the militarism shown in that country over the years. How were they stopped? They were stopped by superior force. Japan, amongst the other fascist powers in the 1930s, laughed at the weak-kneed reactions of the Western powers who simply were not interested in countering aggression with force.
Let us look at a few historical facts. It started, perhaps, with the 1922 naval treaty. The Western powers, Australia included, did their level best to decrease the arms trade. Pursuant to that treaty, we sank our one battle cruiser off Sydney Heads in 1924. We reduced our armed forces. The major powers of Britain, the United States and France did the same - not so fascist Germany, fascist Japan, fascist Italy; nor, indeed, fascist communist regimes such as the Soviet Union. They went on an aggressive rampage. What did we see there? We did nothing at the rape of Ethiopia, a country that was very primitive then and had very few arms. It was overrun by a
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .