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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 266 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

No-one in this Assembly has come up with a viable suggestion either to stop this man producing weapons of mass destruction and murdering people in Iraq or to alleviate the danger he poses to his own people, to the region and, indeed, to the world. None of you supporting that most laudable goal, peace, have come up with anything that will do that, and I think Mr Smyth's motion is sensible and worthy of support.

MR ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before we proceed, on that matter of the grammar in Mr Smyth's amendment, I would like to point out to members the change to the motion. At the end of (d) at point (1), it should read:

; and

calls on the Australian Government to:

We will let the Hansard record the change to that motion.

MRS DUNNE (11.16): I rise in support of Mr Smyth's amendment. The great problem with the motion that Ms Tucker has brought forward-again, not to doubt the motives of Ms Tucker-is that the suggestions she puts forward have been tried and they have failed. They have been found wanting.

Every element of Ms Tucker's motion goes to the fact that there is no viable alternative being offered by Ms Tucker. First of all, she says that there is no clear evidence that there is an immediate impact on Australia and its allies. Unfortunately, this is what Neville Chamberlain said about Czechoslovakia in 1938. Earlier today, Mr Hargreaves said it was not in our geopolitical sphere, so we shouldn't worry about it. That is exactly what Neville Chamberlain said about Czechoslovakia: "It is a little country a long way away, and we do not know very much about it."That was the beginning of appeasement.

We have appeased and appeased for 12 years. And what has Ms Tucker come up with as a solution? That we do away with economic sanctions. Where has the Left been? Where has the Greens movement been? Where have the people been who, all through the 70s, 80s and 90s, proposed economic sanctions against South Africa? They worked for South Africa, but they won't work for Saddam Hussein. There is constant intellectual dishonesty and inconsistency in the positions being put forward. We can be upset about Tibet, but we do not show much interest when it comes to Iraq.

The original motion puts forward a whole lot of tried and tested suggestions that failed comprehensively over 12 years, and this is why this house should adopt the amendments put forward by Mr Smyth.

MRS CROSS (11.17): I support Mr Smyth's amendment, although the sentiment in some of the points could have been a little bit firmer. Mr Smyth says here that Australia's military deployment in the Middle East serves to strengthen the UN position and that Saddam Hussein's record demonstrates that Iraq will only take notice of UN diplomacy backed by the presence of military strength.

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