Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP (2:03 PM) —My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House as to the progress being made by the United Nations to prepare for the possible deployment of weapons inspectors into Iraq? If the deployment takes place, does the minister expect Australians to be involved?

Mr DOWNER (Minister for Foreign Affairs) —I thank the honourable member for her question. I recognise the genuine interest she has shown in this issue over quite some period of time and her participation in debates, both here in the parliament and elsewhere, on this very important question. As both the Prime Minister and I said yesterday, in the House and elsewhere, Iraq has said it will admit inspectors unconditionally, but we do remain sceptical, given Iraq's history of dissembling and avoidance of its obligations. The government's policy is very clear: inspections should be unhindered, unfettered and under the terms of the existing United Nations Security Council resolutions. The UN must be allowed to fulfil its mandate for the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threat. But since the receipt by the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the letter from the Iraqi Foreign Minister, we have been following very closely the progress on preparations for inspection teams, should these inspections end up going ahead.

The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which is known as UNMOVIC, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, are the two organisations which, in the event of inspections proceeding, will go into Iraq. Our Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, John Dauth, met on Tuesday with Hans Blix, the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC. Dr Blix advised that his inspection team was ready to respond very quickly. They could get a preliminary logistics team into Iraq within a week and formal inspection teams could soon follow in the weeks after that, depending on how easy it is to organise the logistics. UNMOVIC has trained 320 inspectors and has worked through the documentary evidence it inherited from UNSCOM, as well as new material and assessments, to prepare for inspections on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons and missile capabilities. The IAEA's Iraq Action Team will focus on Iraq's nuclear activities and has prepared a plan for the resumption of inspections. Mr Blix held preliminary discussions on Tuesday with Iraqi officials on the practicalities for inspections, and more discussions are to take place with the Iraqis next week, in Vienna.

I think members will know that Australia has a proud history of contributing to international disarmament and nonproliferation efforts. Honourable members may be interested to know that 110 Australians served with UNMOVIC's predecessor, UNSCOM, and we were the fourth-largest national contributor. Of course, we provided for some time the chair of UNSCOM, Richard Butler. Eighteen Australians have been trained as inspectors by UNMOVIC, and Australia is ready to participate in the resumption of IAEA weapons inspections as well. We have been in discussions recently with the IAEA on this. I do not think there is any doubt that Australians will play a significant role again in inspections, if those inspections take place. We are of course happy for our nationals to participate, given the great expertise they have in some of these technical areas.

In conclusion, the question that is left hanging is the question of whether these inspections will go ahead at all. I thought I might conclude by reminding the House of some comments that Richard Butler—who is well known to members on the other side—the former chairman of UNSCOM, made on the 7.30 Report two nights ago. He said:

We hope that that is not a prediction that turns out to be accurate, but it does remind us that people like Richard Butler have real concerns. He went on to say in relation to the letter from the Iraqi foreign minister:

We urgently await quick responses from the Iraqis on the further questions that have been raised with them by the United Nations. We hope those answers can be provided, and provided consistent with Iraq's obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions.