Miss JACKIE KELLY(11.20 a.m.) —The report on protocols II and IV to the Inhumane Weapons Convention is a very interesting report. It is something that I rise to speak on mainly from my experience in the legal field in our modern-day Australian Defence Force.

The laws of war have been evolving since the Nuremberg trials. In 1925 there was the first attempt to make some sort of international treaty or agreement on conduct of armies during international conflict. It was quite interesting that at that stage it even led to different treatment of prisoners of war when the Germans captured English POWs as compared to Russian POWs, because they had a treaty with England and they did not with Russia.

Nuremberg put paid to all that, and came up with the concept of a crime against humanity. From the Second World War there were some very obvious examples, universally accepted today, about what is a crime against humanity, but we are still working towards a closer definition of acceptable conduct during conflict. The protocols that we are discussing here today in terms of the use of laser weapons and the use of antipersonnel landmines are two areas in this evolution of the law.

We run a very professional Australian Defence Force. They have a number of standards. Right from recruit training, they are given numerous lectures and training and indoctrination in acceptable conduct for a professional modern-day military force. They are also involved in international conventions, courses and conferences, at which they spread ideas to other armies. Over the years of my involvement in this area, I have seen various nations—in our region, especially—adopting the laws of war. It has not only been their chiefs of staff: I have seen them gradually inculcating that right through to the lowest ranking serving members.

This is what is so important in modern warfare: the sense of professionalism and what is acceptable and what is not. The international treaties we are discussing today go a long way towards setting up that humane standard for everyone to follow during times of conflict, when a lot of ordinary intercourse or everyday life is incredibly disrupted.

An obvious example of that is antipersonnel landmines. They have attracted a lot of coverage since Vietnam, when they were most effectively deployed, and subsequent to that, when the cost on civilian life came to be counted. That human experience has led to the current major campaign for an international ban on antipersonnel landmines. They are not designed to kill people—merely to injure them; because a military force can be disabled much more effectively if members are injured rather than dead. The injured are assisted by their comrades, whereas the dead are simply buried.

Antipersonnel mines have had a delaying effect in terms of restricting areas which armies must have personnel to defend. They could cover one flank with a minefield and set up their offensive operations on another flank. These days, in modern warfare with armoured personnel carriers and anti-mine tanks and vehicles, it is very easy for opposing military forces to breach minefields. These days they are not even a delaying factor. Armies can move at pretty well ordinary military speed across most minefields with the right equipment. That leaves the mines behind after the conflict has moved on for agricultural workers, for children looking for firewood, for women and children and civilians to suffer the awful consequences of non-detectable antipersonnel mines.

Many things can be done to deploy mines. The military has come a long way in the evolution of mines, mainly looking at the security of their personnel. For instance, mines can deactivate or self-destruct after a certain time or have a time limit on them. There are all sorts of methods. Given the technology available today, you have to wonder at the strategic advantage of having mines at all. In 1997, they have very limited use, even as a delaying tactic at best and certainly not as a defensive military weapon.

The Red Cross has led the major campaign against mines. Obviously, they are left behind, after most wars, to pick up the pieces of humanity—the terrible injuries to the children and the amputees. It does not matter whether there are 500 mines in a field or only one. They all have to be surveyed and cleared. Australia has an incredible record in its UN operations in terms of demining areas in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Laos and Mozambique. We have also had involvement in Pakistan and Namibia and in the Middle East conflicts.

Our ADF's ability to demine areas has made a significant contribution to UN efforts in war-torn zones and in the re-establishment of law and order in those areas. It is a skill that we would wish our ADF personnel to retain. However, it is something that we want to take the lead on. The ministerial statement last year on this matter quite clearly led the world on this and made a great leap forward for Australia in finally proposing these protocols.

The numbers of mines in the world today is something that really needs to be emphasised and considered. It would take something like 1,000 years to clear all the active landmines already in place. It will cost about $US33 billion to rid the world of all the mines that are there. For every 20 that are laid, only one is cleared. As many as five million new mines may be laid in any one year. It can cost between $US200 and $US1,000 to clear each mine.

It is a massive social problem left behind after conflict. Although conflict is the complete breakdown of law and order, the ultimate objective of any professional army is to return to law and order, to return the established systems where there is safety and security for all. The use of antipersonnel mines in an undetectable and indiscriminate fashion during conflict has a horrific aftermath and a cost to civilians, who, quite clearly, since 1945, have not been the target of any attack or military objective.

Mines are incredibly cheap to make. They can be built in garages, fields or kitchens. They generally tend to be the preferred weapon of choice in underdeveloped countries. The time is well past for Australia to take a stand in leading the attitude to a professional deployment of military power. The statements by the minister to date have gone a fair way to doing that and Australia's ratification of these protocols heads that way, as well.

The other protocol mentioned concerns laser weapons. As yet, we are still feeling our way in this murky field of law to come to some understanding and standards which will be considered humane. Man's arms race is certainly ahead of itself on this one. We currently use lasers to designate targets for guided bomb systems. What is the effect of those? What is the effect from that of now moving forward to developing the laser itself as the projectile rather than a bullet, with the terrible consequences of blindness or the aftermath on the civilian population in a conflict? This was clearly seen with the use of mustard gas in World War I.

Loss of eyesight and the subsequent consequences to society in dealing with the costs of blindness and retraining and reskilling people who have lost such a substantial part of their independence have already been seen throughout history. We must move slowly towards finding acceptable standards and uses for this technology that comes up every day from our scientists and engineers, who are constantly pushing back the frontiers of science.

It is something that I feel very strongly about. I think Australia should be leading world opinion. Without the modern armies doing so, we have little hope of underdeveloped countries taking the same professional attitude to the deployment of military power. That has an adverse consequence on our military personnel when they come up against an opponent who does not comply with the laws of war.

That was clearly seen in the recent Gulf War in the Middle East. The Iraqi military forces had used chemical weapons against the Iranians in their previous eight-year war, but they failed to do so in the Gulf War. They respected the discipline of the forces that were there, in an acknowledgment that they would not use chemical weapons. A balance was achieved in terms of warfare that was conducted quite clearly within the bounds of the laws of war, the Geneva conventions, the subsequent protocols and all the other treaties that we continually develop in the international sphere in the hope of attaining some form of international agreement on what is the definition of a crime against humanity. I commend the report to the House.