Mr BEVIS (10:34 AM) —This is the most important issue to have come before this House since the last election. It affects the lives of many Australians and, if we get this wrong, it has the potential to affect many thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of lives around the world. Yet here we are as a parliament restricted in the time in which we are able to debate the matter. There is a 10-minute restriction on all members now speaking. I think that is unfortunate. The Prime Minister has not spoken at all, and I think that is unfortunate.

Let me put aside at the outset the arguments about whether this is a debate about either patriotism to Australia or an understanding of our relationship with the United States. It is clear from past practice of governments on both sides of this chamber, and from the commitments that have been given by people on both sides of this chamber, that neither of those matters should be in doubt. But, as Simon Crean made clear, our close and strong relationship with the United States does not involve with it an insipid support for anything that the administration of the United States wishes to pursue. Indeed, on this issue it is interesting to look through the media in the United States and read the debate now going on in the US amongst not just its own people, not just the Democrats and the Republicans, but amongst people within George W. Bush's own administration who do not share the same hawkish view that he and his vice-president have been so quick to enunciate.

Because of the time restrictions I am going to limit myself to a couple of quick points in seeking to respond to some of the matters raised in debate in this chamber and outside it as to why there is a need for military action to be taken against Saddam Hussein. My view is that George Bush Jr's obsession with the war on Iraq is simply not supported by the facts and the information which are in the public domain. There has been ample opportunity over the last 12 months for information to be put into the public domain, and I include particularly the speech by the US President to the United Nations last week and the speech in this parliament yesterday by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Fundamentally, there are four reasons advanced. One reason that is not advanced, of course, is that Iraq was somehow implicated in September 11. As the member on the government side pointed out, there is no evidence of a serious nature that has been put forward to demonstrate that at any length, and I might say that were such information to now materialise 12 months after the event there would have to be serious questions about its authenticity.

There are four reasons advanced. The first is that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and that is without doubt. Yes, he does. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is a body I regularly check with for information. It has a 142-page summary—and that is just the extract for the summary—detailing its annual reports since 1991 on the issue of weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein has had at his disposal.

Let us put this into some genuine, objective perspective. There are approximately 33 countries that also have weapons of mass destruction; Saddam Hussein is not unique in this. The Federation of American Scientists identifies 33 states, nine of them with nuclear capability now and another eight that are believed to have nuclear capability or could reasonably acquire it. So there are 17 nuclear states in the world, very few of which have signed the international agreements. Saddam Hussein is probably one of those, but there is a long list that time does not allow me to go through. There are 26 nations that have chemical weapons. A number of them, I am sure, would create just as much concern in the minds of the Australian public were this list to be on the front page of the daily papers rather than the rhetoric that some of the papers are pursuing in relation to Iraq. There are 20 countries, according to the Federation of American Scientists, that have biological weapons. Again, included in that list are a number of countries that are far from being democratic and free, and 16 of the 33 countries have missile delivery capabilities.

As the Canberra Times pointed out just this week:

The first point needs to be put into that perspective. The second point that has been raised is that Saddam has used weapons of mass destruction. That is true. He used them against the Iranians in the seven-year war and he has used them against his own people, the Kurds, and that is despicable. It needs to be recalled though that, when he used weapons of mass destruction against the Iranians in the seven-year war, the Western world sat back and either applauded or acquiesced. We do not actually have the high moral ground on Saddam Hussein's use of these despicable weapons. We, as a community in the West, did nothing or applauded his use of these despicable weapons only a little more than a decade ago—15 years ago. He has used those weapons of mass destruction; that is a concern but we need to understand our record as a Western community in relation to that.

It has been mentioned that Saddam Hussein has defied UN resolutions. Clearly he has, and there is no reason why he should have. That is not news in 2002. This has been widely understood by everybody in the global community for the last four years. Indeed, it has been understood for most of the time since 1991, but it has certainly been unequivocally the case for the last four years. What has changed in the last 12 months—or the last 12 weeks—as distinct from the last four years or the last 10 years in relation to that?

It also needs to be understood that he is not alone when it comes to acts of aggression that fly in the face of UN decisions. Israel is in defiance of the 1967 resolution 242, which required its withdrawal of armed forces from the territories occupied in the then recent conflict in 1967. India and Pakistan are in violation of UN resolution 98 of 1952. We are talking half a century ago here. They are still in violation of that UN resolution, and there are still deaths and war in the disputed territories between India and Pakistan. There was a UN resolution in 1974 regarding Cyprus, obliging the parties to comply with all provisions and specifically requiring the Turkish armed forces to be removed from Cyprus. The world has pretty much turned a blind eye to those other examples. The level of hypocrisy that we are displaying in this debate is possibly acceptable in one sense but for the fact that we are talking about the lives of many, and we should not be sacrificing the lives of any on the basis of this sort of hypocrisy.

I was interested in a comment made by the American Ambassador to Australia in a speech he gave here in Canberra, reported in the Canberra Times. He said:

I agree with him and I think that is a pretty fair test that all of us in this chamber should have a bit of a think about. I have got two sons and a daughter who are of military service age. They are not in the military but I can tell you that I would not under any circumstances want to see them involved in a war in Iraq on the evidence before us now. I think that is a test that people around this chamber should apply to themselves.

The President of the United States should apply it to himself. There is no time now, but I commend to people a series of articles in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe during the presidential election campaign, which address George W. Bush's own military service—or lack thereof—during the Vietnam War. They make for some very interesting reading and I hope to have an opportunity to put some of that on the record at some later stage, because when he had the opportunity to stand up for his country during the Vietnam War, he certainly did all he could to avoid that commitment.

I am also moved by the contribution of American General Anthony Zinni, whose past appointments include commander-in-chief of the US Central Command, which commands forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, from 1997 to 2000. He knows a bit about this region of the world. Because of that experience he has been appointed as a US Middle East envoy by the current President. Only last month in a speech to a group in Florida, he said:

General Zinni is absolutely right. We should heed his advice, which I would love to quote more extensively, because he is giving advice to the President of the United States as a senior adviser. We should look carefully at the evidence. If the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Australia want to present the case, they should do so because the case has not been made. If the case is going to be made and lives are going to be lost, that case has to be overwhelming. War is the last resort. It is a failure of international diplomacy. We should not be talking it up; we should be seeking a resolution through all other means. (Time expired)