Senator MARGETTS (4:18 PM) —There is an interesting background to the issue we are dealing with today. It certainly is urgent; there would be very few people in East Timor or Indonesia or amongst the international community who do not think this issue is urgent. From the point of view of Australia's standing, if at some point we were able to say we recognised that there had been an error in Australian government judgment—whether it was coalition or Labor, it matters not—it would make a great deal of difference to the people of East Timor. If it was not for that error of judgment, we would not be standing on one foot and then the other trying to work out what we are going to say about this issue at the moment. We would be beyond the situation of always having had good relations with Indonesia—we would have had it on an honest basis.

There is an incredible amount of debate going on about this issue in the wider community. It is very disappointing to see a politician like Gough Whitlam using this as a means of making personal attacks within the Labor Party. I am very sad that that is happening, because I am one of those people who found a lot to be admired in many of the policies and actions of Gough Whitlam. I also believe many of his policies and actions were what could be considered courageous—some of them in the Sir Humphrey way of depicting courageous; others in a way that we had never seen before, involving standing up for what were believed to be issues of commonsense and principle for many in the community. However, that does not mean that one person is necessarily right on all issues.

This is one of those areas where the mature—and urgent—thing for Australia to do would be to admit that maybe we made mistakes in the past, whether it was Andrew Peacock announcing that Australia had decided to accept East Timor as part of Indonesia—which, despite what Senator Hill said, no other country had actually done—or whether it was Gough Whitlam taking what he considered to be the right action at the time. The mistake was in not taking what I believe was the honest action, in not accepting the reality that the rest of the world accepted and dealing with Indonesia on a true footing. By doing what we did we put ourselves behind the eight ball in any negotiations in relation to East Timor. We put ourselves—I would say deliberately—in a compromising position in relation to any further discussions with Indonesia when it related to East Timor and, perhaps, when it related to any of the other areas in the world where such situations existed. But East Timor was particularly important to Australia because of its proximity. It was, I believe, an incorrect recognition historically; and there is no time which is too late, I believe, to acknowledge what might have been an incorrect judgment in the past.

I should explain to the Senate that in the first place I alluded to the Labor Party having decided that, on issues of foreign affairs with parties like the Greens or the Democrats, its first response is no. Senator Faulkner has said that there is no chance to amend such amendments. That is not true. There is always the possibility to approach any mover of any motion and ask for the wording to be changed. I have done it on dozens of occasions. People have approached me and asked that motions be put off for a certain amount of time. They have asked for there to be different wordings and that they be given different background on it. They have asked for words to be amended, for paragraphs to be taken out and for words to be added in. It has happened on countless occasions with motions that I have been involved with. It is always possible for that to happen. Therefore, it is not correct to say that it is not possible and that each motion has to be `take it or leave it'.

There might necessarily need to be better communications between the parties. It might mean that we also need to communicate more effectively. However, it is not correct to say that these are `take it or leave it' motions. There are means by which, in the Senate, you can make amendments to motions that are put. I think what is happening is that there are some embarrassments on foreign affairs. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Brown's ) be agreed to.