Mr BILLSON (12:44 PM) —Forty-five minutes have passed since the deadline, and Saddam has chosen not to take the peace option. In the handful of hours before more than 30 countries join to enforce the internationally agreed conditions of the negotiated peace that followed the 1991 Gulf War, we condemn Saddam's regime for refusing over more than 12 years to abide by the 17 resolutions of the United Nations Security Council regarding the threat it poses to international peace and security. One of the greatest sins I can imagine is to give away a peace previously secured at great human and material cost. It is wrong to turn our backs on what has passed—the purpose and price of previous military engagement. We will remember.

I often say that it is the duty of all of us in public life to honour and uphold the freedoms, peace and prosperity that our service personnel, along with our allies, have delivered to all Australians. Our military embodies the finest traditions of service, dedication and professionalism, and has done what has been asked of it by the civilian led governments of the day. The ADF personnel and the veterans before them are all heroes to me, and I add my heartfelt expression of unequivocal support for the Australian service men and women and other personnel serving with the international coalition. Our full confidence is in them, and we hope all will return safely to their homes. In this context I want to make my remarks today about the government's deployment of ADF elements in the region to the international coalition of military forces prepared to enforce Iraq's compliance with its international obligations under successive resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, with a view to restoring international peace and security in the Middle East region.

Opponents of the government's decision, a number of whom have contacted me to convey their views, seek to characterise this action as a unilateral and unjustified attack on Iraq—something new; free of context; a debate that starts with a fresh slate. I have listened carefully to these views—and I have at least tried to listen when they are delivered as interjections at peace rallies—and have considered them against my own thinking. In fact, I have thought very deeply about this issue and have canvassed new aspects of how this debate should proceed, such as challenges of succession in Iraq, diplomatic momentum and inertia, and the parallels with the domestic guns buyback reforms and the liberation of East Timor.

Like many of my colleagues, I am subjected to claims that I am merely parroting government propaganda and personal attacks about lacking courage and guts. Let me assure all concerned that I have mixed feelings about the course of action we are debating here today and have arrived at an on balance view after careful assessment of information, convictions and arguments that all form part of the debate. It has hardly been a journey to exercise machismo. I have asked myself the following three central questions in forming this view on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Does Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction? Do these weapons represent a threat to Australia's interests? If so, should we do anything about it?

When Iraq was repelled from Kuwait, military action was ended on the condition that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability be disarmed. When UN weapons inspectors were forced out in 1998, many questions remained unanswered about Iraq's arsenal. Saddam's son-in-law subsequently revealed the extent of Iraq's anthrax program and was killed for telling the truth. Saddam has used these weapons before—even in humanitarian atrocities on his own people, which many before me have described. He has displayed a contempt for human life such that innocent people are frequently used as the disposable tools of his totalitarian regime. His regime has invaded two neighbouring countries and bombed five.

As 17 UN Security Council resolutions testify, the existence of these weapons in the hands of a regime with form of this kind in using them threatens global security and the peaceful existence of countless millions of people. The rise in terrorist activity, including senseless attacks on innocent people, adds to the urgency to remove the threat of these weapons and disarm Iraq, as has been insisted on by the UN for more than a decade. As recognised by Hans Blix, military build-up and the credible threat of armed intervention were the only things that achieved a change in Saddam's behaviour and secured the re-entry of weapons inspectors.

I want to thank the governments and taxpayers of the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia as the only ones prepared to amass the will, resources and diplomatic momentum to genuinely give peaceful resolution a chance. This coalition put the lead in the diplomatic pencil. While others demanded the right to pontificate and parade around claiming virtue for the limited progress this achieved while contributing precisely nothing to its momentum, they were in fact actively blunting the diplomatic pencil by their actions and statements. I particularly want to pay my respects to the five US service personnel killed in the Black Hawk helicopter accident on 25 February, when their helicopter crashed in a sandstorm during night-time training exercises in Kuwait. Believe me, they have paid a price for the military build-up that has delivered the diplomatic option so many others wish to talk about and build upon.

The `let's have more diplomacy' advocates who are critical of the military build-up ignore the reality that it has only been the military build-up that has produced diplomatic possibilities. To still claim that diplomacy alone will achieve the disarmament of Iraq is to let blind hope triumph over more than a decade of experience. Many people have talked about condemning one, condemning another and condemning governments. They have talked about shame and about who should have the finger pointed at them over this difficult time. The biggest sin we can commit is to ignore the work and sacrifice of those who have come before us. In 1991 thousands of troops paid a price for disarming Iraq and repelling them out of Kuwait. Humanitarian atrocities have been talked about in here. They were added to by that military conflict. The biggest crime is that we need to revisit those things.

Those who should be condemned are those who have allowed us to let go of the peace and the opportunity for stability that the 1991 intervention delivered to us. We have given that away. That is a crime that the international community, including us, should stand condemned for. There was that effort, that sacrifice and that loss of life to secure the repelling of Iraq out of Kuwait and to provide the foundations for the disarmament of this horrendous regime. We have given that away. That is where the condemnation should lie. I wish to return to where I began: it is a great sin to not uphold the work and the achievements of the military personnel who have gone before us. The ADF personnel who were part of the coalition in 1991 did their duty and got so close to the outcome, but the world community dropped the ball on them. They had achieved the repulsion of Iraq out of Kuwait. They had secured a peace plan to see Saddam disarmed of his weapons of mass destruction capability, and we stand condemned for not enforcing it at that time.

This is not a fresh action; this is the enforcement of a peace agreement—an agreement won at great cost to life, to infrastructure and to opportunities, an agreement won at great expense. And we have given it away. We all stand condemned for that. We are debating a motion today about whether to enforce a peace that so many had fought so hard to secure and that we simply did not conclude. It is not a new action. It is not an attack. It is enforcement of a peace plan.

I listen to people condemning the government for not doing anything about humanitarian atrocities in Iraq. The case has been laid out particularly well by those before me—far more eloquently than I have done. But let us not forget why we are here: we dropped the ball. We paid the price to secure a peace and a plan that would ensure ongoing peace in the Middle East and we did not see it through. We all stand condemned for that. I support the government's measures to enforce the peace that those before us had secured. Somehow, we looked the other way and lost what they had worked so hard to deliver to us. (Time expired)