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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (1 April) . . Page.. 1163 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Our soldiers are mourned and named individually-as they should be-yet enemy casualties, in their hundreds and indeed thousands, are celebrated and the dead depersonalised-becoming bland statistics jotted down to signpost the progress and success of the war.

Coalition soldiers died for an honourable cause-the cause, we are told, of freedom-while Iraqi citizens and soldiers alike just died. Unfortunately for them and uncomfortably for the USA, Great Britain and Australia, they were killed by us before we could liberate them.

Mr Speaker, we are often told that those of us who do not support this war are disloyal to our troops. I, and many others, find this accusation offensive and simplistic. Many people in Australia-and I include myself-are experiencing deep emotional turmoil over this war. They are torn between a deeply-felt opposition to the war and a strong and instinctive desire to support our nation and troops engaged in this deadly conflict.

Throughout our history, members of our armed forces have given their lives to defend our freedom and democracy. It is therefore vitally important that, in a vigorous democracy such as Australia, we protect the right to say what we think and feel, without facing the accusation of disloyalty to our nation or our armed forces.

Mr Speaker, I am not disloyal to our troops, who are discharging their duties with all the skill, dedication, bravery and professionalism we have come to expect-I simply do not support the war to which the Australian government has committed our armed forces.

We are also asked whether Australia should continue in its aggressive role, now that the war has begun in earnest and we are committed. To ask such a question is, I believe, to miss the point. This war is wrong. To persist with it will never make it right-nor will any amount of post-facto justification or rationalisation.

It is never too late to do the right thing. Being halfway through a wrong act and deciding to carry it through to completion will never make it right. To have initiated this war was wrong, but to continue it will forever diminish our nation and all that we stand for-fairness, tolerance, decency and democracy.

Before the war began, US Senator Robert Byrd said:

We still have some hope of finding our way out of this box-it won't be graceful, it won't be easy-but it can and should be done.

To close, I again quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

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