Senator SHERRY (10:01 PM) —We are now just past the eighth hour of this debate. Many have made contributions, and I would particularly like to acknowledge the contribution of Senator Bourne which I heard earlier when presiding in the chair. Fortunately, this is a very rare motion that comes before the parliament. It deals with the support of Australia's contribution to and leadership of a United Nations force that is being sent to East Timor of around probably 4,500 troops, not just in a peacekeeping capacity but almost certainly in a peacemaking capacity and almost certainly, I believe, for a long time.

I would like to personally take the opportunity to make a contribution. There may be something new in what I say, but I have had the opportunity to visit both East Timor and West Timor. I have had a long interest of participation and involvement in the East Timor groups, particularly on the north-west coast of my home state of Tasmania. I have a more than passing interest in history. I wish to deal with some of the issues, both past and present, as well as look at some of the future challenges Australia will face because of what has occurred in East Timor.

Firstly, I would like to place on record my very best wishes to the men and women in the peacekeeping force who have gone to East Timor. I think this is the first occasion that women in our armed services will be serving in what is a very dangerous situation which could possibly verge on warfare. So my best goes to the men and women and also to their families who are left behind in Australia. I do look forward to their safe return. I would also like to pay public tribute to a very small and very dedicated group, the Coastal East Timor Group, and the local secretary, Barry Hibbard, whom I have known for some 10 years. As I said, it is a very small group, but without his ongoing commitment and dedication I am sure that the issue of East Timor, at least on the north-west coast of Tasmania, would not have had the attention it has received.

As I said earlier, I had the opportunity in 1990 to visit both West and East Timor. The visit was interesting for the contrast between the two provinces. On visiting West Timor, you were immediately struck by a province that was commercially thriving, where the people certainly appeared happy and content and where there was relatively little military presence in evidence. Crossing the border into East Timor, it was a totally different environment. It was then a province of Indonesia that was almost totally undeveloped commercially. The only industry of any kind was basic subsistence agriculture and some commercial plantations, which interestingly used to be run by the Portuguese and were taken over by the Indonesian military. They had a direct commercial stake in East Timor.

Senator Ian Macdonald —And the marble factory.

Senator SHERRY —I was just about to mention that, Senator Macdonald. Senator Macdonald was also on that delegation. The only manufacturing industry at all in East Timor was a marble quarry and factory. That was the only industry that existed. I understand that things have not changed greatly in the last nine years. The other very obvious issue was the dominance of the Indonesian military in East Timor. It was extremely obvious. It struck me as being a military camp.

If we look back on the history of East Timor, for the first 425 years it was a Portuguese colony, so there was the establishment of a very distinct history and culture from the Portuguese East Indies. It was a brutal colonial regime. That was followed very briefly by the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945 and the very valuable assistance the East Timorese gave to the Australian troops, a number of hundred of whom were in East Timor at that stage and who were assisted whilst the Japanese occupied the country. I might say that the Japanese brutalised the population of East Timor for the assistance they provided to those Australian troops.

In 1975 there was the military occupation by Indonesia with the tacit approval of Australia and, I believe, with the direct approval of the United States. I do not think it was just coincidence that President Ford and his foreign policy adviser, Mr Kissinger, were in the country the day before Indonesia occupied East Timor. In the last two weeks there has been a further example of the horrific brutality of at least part of the Indonesian military and militias.

In looking at the past as a member of a Labor government, at least in my time in this Senate since 1990, we do have to look very hard and critically and reflect on the role of not just the government I was a part of but previous governments—Liberal, National and Labor. We have to seriously question ourselves as to whether we could and should have done more and whether the events of the last two weeks could have been avoided.

It amazes me that a people can suffer so much over 450 years and then, given the opportunity in the past few months to vote in the first democratic election that they have ever participated in, have a 98 per cent voluntary turnout and an 80 per cent vote in support of independence—and that was in an atmosphere of total terror, killing and intimidation in the lead-up to the referendum. It is a wonderful example of the human spirit and an amazing testimony to the human spirit to be free that, despite all that horrific suffering and intimidation, particularly in the last 25 years, they were willing to vote in such overwhelming numbers with such an overwhelming desire for independence.

Before I turn to the events of the last two weeks, we need to draw an important distinction between the events leading up to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor in 1975 and the difficulties that Indonesia faces in other provinces of Indonesia such as Aceh and Irian Jaya. After World War II, when we had a very significant period of decolonisation, it was an accepted principle that colonial boundaries would be respected and that colonies would have the right of self-determination. That was an accepted principle for fairly obvious reasons: if you started readjusting the boundaries of colonies, it would lead to very significant problems.

As far as I can determine, there are only a few occasions when that principle has not been put into practice. One is obviously East Timor. Another is the former colony of Goa, interestingly a former Portuguese colony which I think was invaded by India in 1949, though certainly not in the same brutal way as Indonesia invaded East Timor. The ongoing treatment of the people of Goa has obviously not been anywhere near as brutal, as I understand it. There were two other former colonies: the Spanish Sahara, where there is an ongoing war of independence, and Eritrea, where there has been a revolution for the past 25 years against Ethiopia and their independence has finally been accepted. They are the only four examples where the colonial boundaries and the right to self-determination have not been accepted and acted on by the world community.

The argument is often put that former colonies of the small size and population and the poor level of resources of East Timor cannot survive independently without great difficulty and struggle. Frankly, this is a nonsense argument. It is a nonsense argument for people to be incorporated against their will, as has occurred with East Timor, in the name of stability and anticommunism, as happened at the time of the incorporation, and yet for them to have suffered for the last 24 years in the name of stability and anticommunism. We have to reflect that, if they had obtained their independence at that time, the level of suffering of the people would have been significantly less than has occurred under Indonesian occupation. At least if East Timor had been independent, made mistakes and had to struggle, the mistakes they undoubtedly would have made would have been their own mistakes. It is a totally paternalistic argument to put forward that former colonies of the size of East Timor should be incorporated within the broader nation state. If people want to be free, they have the right to be free and we should respect that.

We had the referendum two weeks ago. There was, however, some clear intention three or four months ago that at least part of the Indonesian military was planning a systematic ethnic cleansing of East Timor if its people voted for independence. Indeed, we have had public utterances from some Indonesian generals that that is exactly what they intended to do through the militias that they had established. There has been some comment in this debate, as there should have been, about the intelligence warnings that were given to the bureaucrats, particularly in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and to our political leadership. It is quite legitimate in this debate—and Senator Hogg and Senator Cook have touched on it—to criticise a policy failure by the government of the day where there has been a policy failure. It is the role and duty of an opposition to point out that policy failure. It is only by learning from those mistakes and correcting them, particularly when there are 4,500 Australian troops at risk fighting overseas, that those policy failures can be accepted, acknowledged and corrected.

As I said earlier, with the events of the past two weeks we have seen a planned campaign of ethnic cleansing implemented by the militias, who are the frontmen of some of the Indonesian military. Of course, it is interesting that the military did not want to get their hands bloody directly. We have seen this campaign of bloodshed perpetrated against the people of East Timor who Indonesia claim are their own people. I would contend that, in the way Indonesia has behaved in East Timor in the last few weeks, it has lost any vestige of moral or political claim that it could have had in East Timor.

I would also like to acknowledge the very deep strength of the Australian people in the last few weeks. Again, it has been wonderful to see the response of the Australian people—their recognition of the repression and the horror in East Timor and their determination to ensure that the democratic will as expressed in the referendum for independence is upheld. I also understand there have been significant demonstrations of support in Portugal. I hope that is followed through with significant financial and practical support to assist the East Timorese and to offset at least to some extent Portugal's neglect, over the 425 years prior to Indonesian military occupation, of its most distant colony. I would also express concern for what I understand is now some 200,000 refugees in West Timor and other parts of Indonesia. If Australia and other countries had not expressed outrage at what was going on in Indonesia, I do not think many of those 200,000 would have survived, and those that had survived either disease or starvation would have been transplanted somewhere else in Indonesia.

This may be a protracted military commitment. I would pose a couple of questions. What happens if the Indonesian parliament rejects East Timor's independence? If it does accept that independence, what happens if it—tacitly, at least—aids militias in their terrorist activities across the border between West and East Timor? No-one would suggest, and no-one has suggested, that any United Nations and Australian military activity can enter into West Timor or any other part of Indonesia—nor should they. I suspect that Australian troops and other UN forces will need to be in East Timor for a significant period of time to defend the developing free republic of East Timor. That will have my personal, ongoing support.

I would like to conclude by touching on a few issues for the future. We should not be blaming the people of Indonesia for what has occurred. I notice there has been some attempt to whip up nationalist fervour on the streets of Indonesian cities. I suspect in part that has to do with the forthcoming election for the new President of Indonesia. I do not believe Australia has—and I do not have—any ill will whatsoever towards the Indonesian people. They are going through their own struggle for democracy. I just hope that the new leadership of Indonesia is able to bring the military, in particular, under some control and to some form of accountability for what has happened.

Whatever happens in Indonesia, I do not believe Australia can have any ongoing military relationship whatsoever with Indonesia for the foreseeable future and certainly in the next five or 10 years. We need to maintain a relationship with the new government that emerges in Jakarta but, at the same time, we need to recognise and respect our own clear cultural and democratic differences. We will need to provide military support and protection to the developing republic of East Timor in the event of Indonesia accepting East Timorese independence not just in words and on paper but by clearly following through with actions to prevent terrorist activity by militias. I also believe there should be a war crimes tribunal established to bring to account the military, some of which engaged in the activities planned and implemented over the last few weeks. We will need a very significant and ongoing aid and assistance program to East Timor. There is literally nothing there; there is nothing left. That program will need to occur, and Portugal should be a major contributor, along with the rest of the international community. Australia has a very major commitment to make there and, again, it will probably be for at least 10 to 15 years.

We should re-establish the Cox Peninsula transmitter to ensure that what is occurring in East Timor—and, for that matter, in other parts of the world—is freely transmitted not just to Indonesia but to other parts of Asia. We will also have to re-examine our defence priorities, particularly in light of the US reluctance to engage more directly and extensively in East Timor. In part, I can understand the US reluctance, given the problems of Australian policy implementation. But we are in a pretty lonely world at the edge of Asia, and that requires a re-examination of defence priorities. We need to re-examine our migration and population policy with a view to significantly increasing our migration. In 25 years the population of Australia will start declining on current population projections. Where that leaves us in the world, particularly in Asia, has very important implications.