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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 244 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I would imagine that most of us are old enough-Ms Dundas probably is not-to remember the huge protests about that in Britain, Germany and other countries. The governments of those countries took what might have been reasonably unpopular moves at the time, given just how many millions of people protested, but they stuck to their guns. The Russians sat up and had a bit of a think about it and it actually enabled Mikhail Gorbachev, a much more reasonable person, to come to power. That was because people actually stood up for freedom and stood up against naked aggression.

I think it is important that we do not vote for this motion. Further, I do not think it is going to damage our relations one jot not to do so; in fact, it would be far worse if we went away from accepting our responsibilities. Ms Tucker talks about a war on Iraq resulting in the death and injury of civilians. I have already indicated how many Iraqis have already been killed. It is quite obvious that most of them would simply like to be rid of this dreadful regime and have a much better one.

Indeed, in relation to impacting directly and indirectly on the health and wellbeing of the Canberra community, I think it would be much more likely for that to happen if steps were not taken, hopefully taken by the United Nations, to enforce the destruction of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, by force if necessary. One hopes that force will not be necessary. But if that does not happen and Saddam Hussein is allowed to continue along the way he has been going for the last 20 years, in breach of UN resolutions for the last 11 or 12 years, I think that it is far more likely that things will happen that will directly or indirectly impact on the health and wellbeing of the Canberra community than if strong action is taken now by the United Nations.

We will be supporting Mr Wood's amendment. I have passed around a further amendment in relation to that and I will speak briefly to it now. I move:

Omit "paragraph (2)", substitute "all words after 'That this Assembly', and substitute 'recognises the fact that it is up to the Australian Government as to whether or not Australia engages in any war or any other action in Iraq and notes that whatever action it does or does not take will be judged in the usual way by the Australian people at the next federal election.'.".

Effectively, the amendment changes the motion to read, "That this Assembly recognises the fact that it is up to the Australian Government as to whether or not Australia engages in any war or any other action in Iraq and notes that whatever action it does or does not take will be judged in the usual way by the Australian people at the next federal election."

I would hope that such a motion, which is fairly neutral, would mean that we could all have our say on this subject and what we think should or should not happen, recognising that at the end of the day it is up to the Australian government to decide. It is elected to look after defence and foreign affairs and, if it takes action that people do not particularly like, it will suffer the consequences at the next election. I think that that is far more appropriate than us trying to strut the world stage with a motion such as this one.

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