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senate vote 2015-03-03#1
Edited by
Alex Jewson
on
2015-03-04 16:24:48
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Title
Motions — Deployment of Australian Troops- Motions — To suspend standing orders to discuss the Deployment of Australian Troops
Description
<p class="speaker">Christine Milne</p><p>Mr President, I seek leave to move a motion relating to the deployment of Australian troops.</p><p>Leave not granted.</p>- [Senator Milne](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/tasmania/christine_milne) put forward a motion asking that the normal business of the Senate be stopped to discuss a motion relating to how Australian troop deployments are handled. The motion is to change the current system of troop deployment, which is by executive decision of the government in power, to a system that includes passing such a decision through Australia's elected representatives.
- [Senator Fifield](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/victoria/mitch_fifield) Spoke against the motion citing two reasons:
- The first being that he didn't feel enough notice or a good enough reason had been provided to warrant changing the proceedings for the day.
- >We do have an order of business in this place. We do have allocated time for government business. We do have allocated time as well for private senators' business. We do have allocated time for a range of contributions from colleagues in this place, and a very good reason always needs to be put forward if those arrangements are to be disturbed. My first point is that I do not think that the appropriate courtesies and notice have been observed in relation to this matter nor do I think a decent rationale has been put forward to change the arrangements for today.
- The second and in his eyes more important reason is that he disagrees with the motion that [Senator Milne](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/tasmania/christine_milne) wants to change the proceedings to discuss. His view is that troop deployment should remain an executive decision, although this view is not strictly relevant to the motion currently being debated.
- >The second and perhaps more significant reason for denying leave and opposing the motion to suspend standing orders moved my Senator Milne is the very long established convention and practice observed by both the coalition government and by also the Australian Labor Party in government—and I do not want to pre-empt whatever the Prime Minister will be saying today—that the deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel in whatever capacity and in whatever way is a decision for the executive government of the day. We do not have the system of the United States here where the congress needs to endorse or give approval to certain actions in relation to armed service personnel. We have a different system here.
- ## Motion:
- >That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion relating to the deployment of Australian troops.
<p>Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, I move:</p><p class="italic">That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion relating to the deployment of Australian troops.</p><p>For the interest of the Senate, I did have that motion distributed and it was to be that parliamentary approval should be required for Australian forces to be deployed to Iraq. I believe this is a matter of urgency, which is why I have moved for a suspension of standing orders to have it debated.</p><p>We have a situation in Australia where going to war is a captain's call, and that is wrong. We are talking about the lives of Australian service men and women, and they are being deployed because the Prime Minister of the day decides that is what he wants to do. In this case, the captain's call is even worse because he made it and then decided not to tell the Australian people about it because a journalist wrote a story in a newspaper saying that he considered sending 3,500 Australian troops to unilaterally invade northern Iraq. So he put off telling the Australian people because he did not want to suffer the backlash from that article. He had to hose that down.</p><p>Meanwhile, he goes to New Zealand and allows the New Zealand Prime Minister to announce the joint force that will be going to Iraq. The Prime Minister of New Zealand said there would be 143 New Zealanders. And here we finally find out, after a delay, after they have dealt with the adverse story in <i>The Australian</i>, where one journalist stopped a nation from being told that another 300 troops are going to go to Iraq. So now we have a situation of: 200 Special Forces personnel; 400 in the Air Force over there now; and we are going to have another 300. That is 900 Australian service men and women on the Prime Minister Tony Abbott's captain's call. We are still suffering from the captain's call that former Prime Minister John Howard made in 2003 sending us into the war in Iraq based on a lie.</p><p>The Labor Party is going along with this and saying they support it. They put a ridiculous caveat on it that, if the Iraqi security forces engage in unacceptable conduct or if the Iraqi government adopts unacceptable policies, Australia should withdraw. We know now they are engaged in unacceptable conduct. We know that the mess that is the Iraqi Security Forces is fighting alongside Shiite militias which are conducting massacres; 72 innocent people were killed just last week as a result of Shiite militias engaged in bad behaviour.</p><p>ISIS has engaged in appalling behaviour as well; let me very clear about that. We are talking about barbaric behaviour on both sides. We also know Iranian generals are fighting with the militias that we will be fighting alongside. We also know those militias are better paid and better weaponed than the security forces we are supposed to be going there for. The question that the Australian people need answered is: why are they going there, for how long, to what purpose, to what end? The Prime Minister has never made that clear and he still cannot.</p><p>It started out as humanitarian aid—and I said then that this would become mission creep. This will see us engaged in a quagmire in Iraq on the back of a captain's call. We have a Prime Minister who is a pugilist who knows nothing other than hitting out and he is sending Australian troops, men and women, into Iraq. We are now going to have 900 of them there—and to what end? For what purpose? As to their engagement with the Shiite militias, what does that mean for Australian troops? We are already in a quagmire and a mess in Iraq, and this is only going to make it worse.</p><p>We have already had the military out there saying that the situation we are in right now is that you have to build capability and confidence. They are saying the morale of Iraqi Security Forces is decimated and undermined; their units are fragmented. And we think we can fix that, do we? Do we seriously think engaging with militias and seeing them engage in inhumane and disgraceful behaviour, alongside ISIS doing exactly the same, is going to sort out the Middle East?</p><p>This is a bad call, and the parliament should decide. This should not be up to a Prime Minister. The community out there honestly thinks that the parliament sends Australian troops. We do not. The Prime Minister makes the call, the captain's call. It is ill-considered; it has not been explained. It is wrong. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Mitch Fifield</p><p>I should indicate at the outset the reasons why the government denied leave for Senator Milne to move her substantive motion, which is the same reason the government will be voting against the motion to suspend standing orders. There are several reasons. The first and by no means the primary reason is that, yes, Senator Milne did circulate this motion through the chamber moments before the Senate sat but there was no reasonable period of notice given to the other senators in this place to consider what it was that the Greens were putting forward.</p><p>We do have an order of business in this place. We do have allocated time for government business. We do have allocated time as well for private senators' business. We do have allocated time for a range of contributions from colleagues in this place, and a very good reason always needs to be put forward if those arrangements are to be disturbed. My first point is that I do not think that the appropriate courtesies and notice have been observed in relation to this matter nor do I think a decent rationale has been put forward to change the arrangements for today.</p><p>The second and perhaps more significant reason for denying leave and opposing the motion to suspend standing orders moved my Senator Milne is the very long established convention and practice observed by both the coalition government and by also the Australian Labor Party in government—and I do not want to pre-empt whatever the Prime Minister will be saying today—that the deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel in whatever capacity and in whatever way is a decision for the executive government of the day. We do not have the system of the United States here where the congress needs to endorse or give approval to certain actions in relation to armed service personnel. We have a different system here.</p><p>We follow the Westminster conventions in this place. As I said, it is something that has been observed by both Labor governments and coalition governments that the Australian Defence Force personnel and their deployment is a decision from the executive government of the day. Now that is not to say that it is not appropriate for those deployments to be debated and discussed in the chambers of the Australian parliament. That is not to say that it is not appropriate for there to be the parliamentary scrutiny and questioning of those decisions. We have the forums and the formats of question time in both places. We have a range of other parliamentary mechanisms where these matters can be examined and debated. And there have been occasions where there has been the provision of the opportunity to debate the decisions of government. But we have not and do not accept as a government that there is or should be a requirement for parliamentary approval for the deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel. That is the practice and I think it is appropriate in the context of our particular system of government.</p><p>So it is for those reasons that the government denied leave for the Australian Greens to move their substantive motion and it is also for those reasons that the government will not be supporting the motion to suspend standing orders. We do not think the case has been made and we do not support the concept that parliamentary approval is or should be required. These are matters, appropriately, for the elected government of the day.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Conroy</p><p>I indicate that Labor will not be supporting this suspension as it has not supported previous suspensions. I would like to begin by expressing Labor's support for the ADF personnel currently involved in operations in Iraq and the wider Middle East. Like they always do, our ADF personnel serving with dedication and distinction. They are having an impact in the international efforts against Daesh. Our RAAF pilots have completed 167 missions, releasing over 200 weapons. Our other Air Force assets including refuellers, command and control aircraft, and heavy lift aircraft are providing valuable support for the international mission. Our special forces are now on the ground in Iraq advising and assisting the Iraqi armed forces. The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Binskin, told Senate estimates last week that our contribution is making a difference against Daesh:</p><p class="italic">… for all intents and purposes … their major push and their major strategic message of being able to establish a caliphate is in question.</p><p>Let me repeat, Labor supports the current commitment to fighting Daesh in Iraq. If there is a change to the size or make up of Australia's military contribution to Iraq, the government has promised to fully brief the opposition. Any changes to the mission should be fully explained to the Australian people by the Prime Minister.</p><p>As Labor has said before, the role of parliament is to debate issues of concern, particularly when it comes to whether Australia deploys its defence forces. Labor supports the role of parliament as a place of debate but that should not be confused with requiring parliamentary approval for military deployments. The role of the parliament in approving military action is fraught with danger. The government must retain maximum flexibility to respond to threats to Australia's national security quickly and efficiently. Requiring parliamentary approval prior to deploying ADF personnel and assets could unnecessarily increase the risk to the deployment. Furthermore, the government of the day has access to classified information which the parliament does not. Executive government remains the most appropriate body to exercise civilian control of the Australian Defence Force. And we fully expect the government to provide opportunities to debate this deployment in the coming weeks and months.</p><p>Just last week the defence minister provided an update on operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. That is appropriate and it ensures an important level of transparency to any ADF deployment. Regular statements to parliament by the government is something that Labor initiated and it is something that this government is continuing As I have said, it is appropriate for the parliament to debate government decisions that involve the deployment of ADF personnel, but that should be done in a considered way. We do not believe that this is a considered way and we do not support this suspension motion.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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