Senator McGAURAN (9:48 PM) —I join with the Senate to express our heartfelt emotions and deepest thoughts for our soldiers on their mission to protect the East Timorese people. How obvious it is that these soldiers are carrying on a proud tradition of our armed forces. Like the diggers of old, when questioned on their task, they laconically answer, `We are going to do the job for which we are trained.' Though very late, as our soldiers headed to Dili there was a sense of finally fulfilling our war debt—a debt that matched what we owed the fuzzy wuzzy angels in Papua New Guinea, for the East Timorese in the Second World War helped and sheltered our soldiers at the cost of their own lives.

No-one can doubt the world-class level to which our soldiers are trained and equipped. Their early securing of Dili is proof enough. In words, their mission is to go into East Timor to restore peace and stability and to facilitate humanitarian aid. They are also to protect and support the United Nations in supervising the peaceful transition to independence of the territory. But the soldiers' mission in essence is summed up in today's media pictures being relayed back of fully equipped and armed soldiers acting as guardians for the children in the streets.

The reason Australia has taken the responsibility of heading up an international peace force is plain for the world to see. It was the total failure of the Indonesian forces to control the violence and butchery of the innocent by the militia, and indeed the military's own razing and slaughter, which forced Australia to act—regardless of Indonesia's indignation at their nearest neighbour's action.

In the end, this is a moral issue. It is not one directly affecting Australia's sovereignty or welfare. Rather it is all about the defence of a people seeking a just freedom, achieving an infant democracy, then having it brutally snuffed out. And the world in force is with us. Anyone who believes the collapse of the Berlin Wall was a miracle can believe that East Timor's freedom is a miracle. Given all that was involved in East Timor's fight for freedom, and though the path to freedom has been bloody, strewn with martyrs, and so often bewildering, the fact that we have arrived at this point is phenomenal.

For certain, Australia will be changed forever from this experience. Firstly, in terms of our defence forces, military spending will greatly increase and stay high—not just to maintain our present force in East Timor but to further equip Australia for the now changing regional environment and the new role Australia will play. Secondly, just as defence will take centre stage in Australian politics, so will foreign affairs after so long in the wings. It is certain our relationship with Indonesia will not stay the same. It will be chilled for some time to come. It was inevitable that our relationship with Jakarta would be damaged when Jakarta itself left us with no choice but to choose between good relations at any cost or a free East Timor. We chose a free East Timor.

It is not surprising that Jakarta is stunned by our choice as since the invasion of East Timor in 1975 Australian foreign policy had clearly signalled that when push came to shove we would always place good relations with Jakarta ahead of an independent East Timor. To this end I believe the military establishment had calculated that Australia's reaction to the mayhem post election would be along the lines of past policy. Therefore it is a fair conclusion that the military's urging on of the militia to violate people and property was aimed at the military re-establishing sovereign authority over the province, firstly, by provoking a reaction from the armed Fretilin fighters in the surrounding hills and therefore creating a situation of civil war not dissimilar to 1975 and, secondly, that the world would not react beyond diplomacy to the mayhem created in East Timor given past history. On both counts they were wrong.

The Fretilin fighters under order of Xanana Gusmao did not retaliate even in the face of the bloodbath. Consider how difficult this must have been looking down on Dili to see nuns, priests, women and children slaughtered inside churches. And the Indonesian military may have been right in regard to the world reaction, except they miscalculated Australia's tangible reaction beyond the diplomatic channels. Australia's strength counteracted the dark side of the plotters—that is, the militia and the armed forces—and that strength has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and a country.

Much has been said that Australia should have and could have arranged for a UN peacekeeping force to go into East Timor before the ballot so as to prevent any post-ballot retribution. There is no doubt that the result of the ballot was predictable as was the militia reaction to the result. I refer the Senate to a speech I made on 19 April this year following the Liquica massacre in which I stated:

The history of East Timor under Indonesian rule shows that such bloodbaths are never the product of rogue elements. If Jakarta does not orchestrate it, then it is unhindered by Jakarta. The turn of events in East Timor places the country in grave danger of sliding into civil war with, consequently, the abandonment of the independent process—which of course is the prime aim of the militia. There is no doubt that following the abandonment of the independence process there would be an even greater suppression and slaughter of the population.

But even with this knowledge, three factors need to be kept in mind: firstly, the utter betrayal of Jakarta's commitment to the United Nations and directly to Australia to keep the peace; secondly, the sheer magnitude of the atrocities could not be predicted; and, thirdly, the United Nations Security Council was not prepared to support such a force at this time with Russia and China indicating the use of their veto. Tragically we know the price of the failure on all three points.

Australia, though ready itself to send a force, was diplomatically incapacitated. The United Nations made the decision that the ballot should go ahead on schedule. As the UN Secretary-General said, if the United Nations had not accepted a ballot in the circumstances available, the ballot probably would not have happened. In a fine judgment we thought it was not right to take that ballot away from the East Timorese.

For one shining moment the people of East Timor inspired the world as they dressed up to go down to the polling booth for the first time and vote for independence in a peaceful democratic way—something in Australia we take for granted. While we can all pore over the intricacies of this sorry matter starting 25 years ago when the Australian government first waved through the Indonesian invasion and subsequent governments' justification and acceptance of the invasion and all its consequences or we can pore over the intricacies leading to the tragedies coming out of East Timor of late, we must never forget that the Indonesian administration and military are to blame, not us. The end point is that we are in there protecting and the land under our guardianship will be safe and free. While we do not fully know the dangers ahead, we do know our responsibilities and Australia can proudly say, `We are prepared.' We are prepared militarily, we are prepared diplomatically, we are prepared economically and, above all, we are prepared morally.

As we now bury the old constructive engagement policy with Indonesia and formulate a new frank engagement, it is worth now burying many of the errors and myths of the past. Firstly, `the Portuguese were bad colonisers'. Well, they did not leave East Timor in the state of destruction and misery it is in today. Further, `Portugal will be contributing infrastructure funds and expertise to rebuild East Timor into the future'. I have no doubt about the genuine warmth the Portuguese have for the East Timorese.

Secondly, `the purpose of the 1975 invasion and the subsequent holding of East Timor by the Indonesians was due to the threat of communism as symbolised by the Fretilin movement'. The truth is that the faith of these people is mutually exclusive to such a regime. All they ever sought was democracy even at the price of martyrdom. And how this faith sustained them in their darkest hour.

Thirdly, `Australia had to prove itself within the South-East Asian region and how we doubted our standing'. This culture grew up within the foreign affairs department, breeding a relationship of appeasement with our nearest neighbour. It was a policy designed to get close to the long-serving Suharto regime to win their confidence. We would therefore be in a position to influence the regime in areas of political, social and economic reform to the advantage of the interests of Australia. Yet, for all this neighbourly bonding, we seem to have gained very little. While carried out in the name of national interest, in the end it was found to be nothing more than a doctrine of feebleness that reaped what it sowed.

In conclusion, it is amazing how this little country has captured the world's imagination with its quest for freedom and fever of faith. But just as East Timor needs us to protect it, maybe we need East Timor to remind us of the value of our safe democracy and to inspire our faith.