Page 2464 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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people as it is to anybody else, because they are very often on the receiving end of it. But I think that the debate tonight has shown how far away from the nub of the problem we can get. It started off, of course, with Mr Connolly talking about selling mustard gas to Saddam Hussein. We do not intend to sell any mustard gas to Saddam Hussein, and Mr Connolly knows it.
What we ought to have been debating tonight is the fact that the Labor Party, in its usual fashion, has used a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Mr Connolly's reaction to the Aidex exhibition is to put out an edict that says that you cannot show any military equipment whatsoever. It does not matter whether it is a piece of uniform or a combat ration pack. No military equipment at all, by that edict, can be shown for sale or otherwise. You cannot even put it on exhibition out there. If somebody is manufacturing a food pack that has been designed for military use, and it also has a civilian application, under that sledgehammer it cannot be shown in any shape or form at Aidex.
Here we are again, with this great consultative Labor Party. They did not go and talk to the people who want to put this exhibition on; they just issued their edict. And you talk about consultation. You simply have no comprehension of the problem. You have no comprehension of the enormity of the solution that you have wrought. It would have been very simple to have spoken to these people and said, "There are all categories of military equipment; there are some kinds we do not want. We do not want your bombs; we do not want your guns; we do not want your tanks". There are other kinds of equipment that are defensive in nature - personal security equipment - that could in no way be seen as being offensive by anybody. But, no, you have to kill it off; hit it with a sledgehammer.
You talk about dropping H-bombs on Hiroshima. That is what you have done on Canberra. In economic terms, that is what you have done to Canberra. If the Labor Party can go over the top of the hill on a subject like this, what is going to be next? They take a dislike to some element of our industry, and they say, "Not in Canberra. We will not have you near us because it offends Labor Party ideology". Never mind the other 70 per cent of Australians who do not subscribe to your Labor Party ideology - "To hell with you lot. We did not get elected here to represent everybody; we got elected to represent only the 60 ideologues sitting over in our Labor Party caucus. That is who we respond to, and to hell with the rest of you". I do not believe that you people could not have sat down in a sensible way and talked to the people who want to put on this exhibition and come to some compromise about what could and could not be exhibited.
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