Mr TED GRACE(3.58 p.m.) —I second the motion, with great pleasure. I would also like to congratulate the new chairman of the Kuwait-Australia Parliamentary Friendship Group, my colleague Alex Somlyay. While we are on congratulations, I would also like to send congratulations to a very good friend of the association and a good friend of mine, Sheikh Salem, who, after the recent elections in Kuwait, has now taken up the high office of Deputy Prime Minister and defence minister in Kuwait. At the same time, he has retained his chairmanship of the Missing Persons Bureau, an appointment he has held since the end of the Kuwaiti war because of his interest and at the great expense, of course, of other important government positions. He has come back into the government again but retained his position as chairman. For those of you who might not know, he has devoted all of his time to travelling the world convincing people of the disaster that was Kuwait five or six years ago. He has discussed this subject in the UN and every other forum that he has been able to get access to.

It may not seem a big thing when you say `just over 600 people'—I have pointed this out to the parliament before—but if you equate 600 people to a very small national population of just over half a million people, you would soon deduce that nearly every home in Kuwait has been affected by the atrocious behaviour of Saddam Hussein. We are talking about missing people. I know this subject is not about me, but I remember during the war when one of my uncles went missing. I always remember my old Irish grandmother was in a terrible state, and the fact that he was missing was more of a blow to her and caused more anguish in the family than the fact that nobody was aware of what became of him. It is the same with these people.

Iraq is playing a silly war of nerves with Kuwait at the present time. On numerous occasions they have said that those people do not exist, and yet at other times they say, `Yes, they do exist, but not in the numbers that you say.' To add more confusion to the matter, in December last year, for some unknown reason, they released to Kuwait the dead body of one of the prisoners listed. On the one hand, they deny that prisoners exist; and the next thing is that they deliver the body of a prisoner who died in detention. And as recently as 15 May this year they actually released one prisoner. Confusion has been caused.

Obviously, Saddam Hussein is still smarting over the terrible hiding he got from Kuwait and her associate countries during the war. Of course, we should all be proud of the fact that Australia was involved in that terrible war.

The fact is that even as recently as 16 October 1996, at a meeting in Geneva regarding the missing people of the Kuwaiti war, the Iraqi delegation did not know anything. This is the stock answer that they keep giving. So it is confusion all round. Obviously, those people are there somewhere, and some of the information from people who have escaped from Iraq over the last four to five years has confirmed that yes, there are Kuwaiti prisoners of war there.

Getting information is not always easy, and that is where I would like to give my congratulations to Abdul Jannil Albaf. As the chairman of our committee meant to say, he formed the Kuwait-Australia Friendship Group in Australia. Through association with that group, I became friendly with him and he encouraged me to form the parliamentary group of the same name here in Canberra, of which I was the inaugural chairman.

Without people like Abdul Jannil we would not get any information at all. He has been a great source of information to both myself and the group. A couple of years ago he initiated a program whereby Australian parliamentarians went to Kuwait to see first-hand the damage done to the country by the vandals from Iraq. That was a very good trip which was arranged by Abdul Jannil. He was also instrumental in inviting Sheikh Salem, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister and defence minister of Kuwait, to Australia 18 months to two years ago; and that was a very successful trip.

Personally, I think that Saddam Hussein should not be let off the hook under any circumstances whatsoever in his obligations to conform to the United Nations sanctions. As a matter of fact, we have gone a long way in allowing Iraq to sell some oil to alleviate some of the poverty in his country, but that is as far as we should go. As parliamentarians in Australia and as friends of Kuwait in the friendship group, we should never miss an opportunity to inform everybody we can through the world on our visits overseas of our position. When delegations visit Australia, we should never miss an opportunity to advise world politicians, and anybody who is willing to listen, of our position.

As the parliament would be aware, every year we have two parliamentarians attending the United Nations sessions in New York for a three-month period. This year we have from the government the Hon. Bruce Reid and from the opposition the Hon. Ralph Willis, two very prominent politicians in Australia. I took the opportunity to advise them on the up-to-date situation in Kuwait and pleaded with them, while they were in New York, to lobby anybody that was in easy reach of them and to inform them of Australia's point of view. I also asked them to point out to anybody who might lobby for Saddam Hussein Iraq's responsibilities in conforming to the UN resolutions that have been passed on him over the past four years. I take great pleasure in seconding this motion and recommend it to the House.