Page 2466 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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Mr Kaine: But you are a NIMBY - not in my back yard. You have adopted Mr Moore's philosophy.
MR DUBY: Please, Mr Kaine, do not wish that on me. Let us get it right. What most of the members of this Assembly are saying is that we abhor violence and we do not want to be part of the international armaments trade. That is a very simple thing. I cannot, as a matter of fact, understand why there would be any objection to it from my esteemed fellow members. Indeed, to me that would be a very honourable thing to try to attain. Every little step taken is a little closer that we get to where we want to be, where there would be fewer armaments and less death and destruction on the world scene.
Accordingly, I find no objection whatsoever to Mr Moore's motion. I think it has been made perfectly clear by the speakers that we are not trying in any way to declare the ACT an armaments free zone or a nuclear free zone; nor are we trying to interfere in any way with Australia-New Zealand relations, or even relations with the United States or anything like that. We are simply saying that we do not want to be part of the arms trade. We do not want displays such as Aidex which entail the best way to take out a platoon in the shortest possible time being demonstrated here in the ACT. We do not want our children to be part of that scene. We know that it is necessary, and we know that those things need to be developed. But we do not want to be part of a bazaar, a marketplace for them, where, as we all know, with the best intentions, these products wind up going to the most strange end locations in the world.
Indeed, there are probably many families today - in countries that are friendly to us - who regret the day that there was an arms display in London, Brussels or, for that matter, Washington; families of people who have gone off to the Gulf and have been killed by armaments that are displayed and sold in the Western world. I think that is deplorable. I endorse the motion entirely, and I think any sensible person should endorse it also.
MR JENSEN (9.29): Mr Speaker, the issue we are discussing tonight is a difficult and complex one. It is not a simple case of right over wrong. As one who has served in our Defence Force, and as a former infantry platoon commander in South Vietnam, as I have said before, anyone who thinks that war and the killing of one's fellow humans is a game or a great adventure has never been involved in such an experience. There is a major difference between training for war and actually being involved in war. I trained at the time because there was a war on, as many of my fellow countrymen did at the time.
Debate interrupted.
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