Senator BARTLETT (Leader of the Australian Democrats) (5:54 PM) —by leave—I move:

This response from the Prime Minister is to a resolution of the Senate of 6 February, and is a particularly important response in the current context of Australian troops who are quite likely to shortly be committed to war in Iraq with troops from the US, the UK and possibly other nations. The resolution of the Senate specifically expressed opposition to any use of nuclear weapons in any conflict in Iraq and sought that the Prime Minister oppose any Australian involvement in a war where there was the possibility of nuclear weapons being used. It builds upon questions that were asked by the Australian Democrats of the Prime Minister's representative in this chamber, Senator Hill. These questions sought the Prime Minister's action in getting a clear-cut statement ruling out the possible use of nuclear weapons by the governments of the UK and the US. We wrote to the Prime Minister specifically asking him to use his so-called peace mission to the US and the UK, and to the United Nations, to get a clear-cut guarantee from those nations that they would not use nuclear weapons. What we have, in this response by the Prime Minister, is another occasion where he will not make a clear-cut statement, leaving himself wiggle room all the time. You wonder why the Australian people sense that there is something just not right at all about this whole plan for war when even on something as basic as the possible use of nuclear weapons you cannot get a clear-cut statement from the Prime Minister. His statement says:

At no point during my recent meetings in Washington and London was I given any cause for concern with regard to the threat or use of nuclear weapons ...

There is a big difference between not being given any cause for concern and being given a clear-cut guarantee that nuclear weapons will not be used. We all know, and the Australian public knows—they are not fools— that this Prime Minister is very good at not being told what he does not want to know. We have seen it with this Prime Minister in the children overboard affair amongst other things. People who have discussions and meetings such as these are clearly not going to raise anything. Who in their right mind would raise the possibility with the leader of another nation that nuclear weapons might be used if that leader has said that if he knows there is going to be the use of nuclear weapons Australia will not be involved? Of course they are not going to tell him, which is why the Prime Minister should have asked for—it is pretty straightforward—and received a clear-cut guarantee. Simply providing this misleading half statement to the Senate in this response to the Senate's resolution, saying that he had not been given any cause for concern, is simply not good enough. It is the sort of diplomatic doublespeak that might sound fine on the surface but is clearly not convincing. If he did get a clear-cut guarantee he would say so. So, again, you have to wonder why he didn't get it and why he won't make such a simple straightforward statement.

From the Democrats' point of view, it is another indication of the approach this government has taken in leading Australia into an unjust and unnecessary war, tying us immovably to the foreign policy objectives of United States and ignoring the multilateral frameworks for peaceful disarmament. Every step of the way there has been obfuscation. There has been an unwillingness to provide information to the Australian people. There has been a lack of interest in providing information to the parliament. There has been continual dodging and weaving about what decisions were made when and what the decisions actually mean. We still have the pretence being followed that, somehow or other, it is actually a realistic possibility that if war starts the Australian government may still decide to turn our troops around and pull out. That is an absurd concept, as every Australian knows, yet we still have the Australian Prime Minister continuing to hold up this fiction that no decision has been made and Australia may still decide not to participate in any war that starts.

We had the fiction today and yesterday when the Prime Minister and Minister Hill said that no decision would be made until UN processes were finalised. When pressed on what that meant in question time today, it quite clearly meant nothing of the sort. It meant, `If we don't get what we want out of the UN then we'll look at the situation and do something else if we so decide.' This continual sophistry and the Prime Minister's lack of being direct, straightforward and up-front is part of the reason why so many Australians are apprehensive and very concerned about the prospect of war. They know the case does not stack up. They know that the arguments are flimsy and the justifications are poor. When you continue to get from the Prime Minister these half answers, containing escape clauses, as some kind of response to a clear-cut resolution of the Senate, it is no wonder that the Australian people do not support this approach.

For the Prime Minister to get a clear-cut guarantee from his allies that they will not use nuclear weapons is a simple request and, one would have thought, a simple thing to achieve. The reason why these questions continue to be asked and the reason why the Senate supported this resolution on 10 February is that Prime Minister Blair and the UK defence secretary, Mr Hoon, continually refuse to answer—using the usual diplomatic trick of neither confirming or denying and saying that it is hypothetical and all those sorts of tricks—the straightforward question: is there any prospect of nuclear weapons being used? As Mr Howard says in the response, `I see no prospect of nuclear weapons being used.' It is easy not to see something if you do not want to look, but that is simply not good enough for something as fundamental as this.

Let us remember that one of the key justifications for this potential conflict is disarmament. President Bush was on the television again today saying, `We will disarm Saddam Hussein.' That is good. Everyone wants to do that. The Democrats say we should ensure peaceful disarmament and let the current processes through the UN run their course and not cut them short because they do not meet the US timetable. If we are seriously considering doing this as a government and as a nation—because if the government decides to pull us into war our nation will, for better or worse, be at war— supposedly we are doing that predominantly for disarmament. However, one of the key issues that would undercut any prospect of genuine disarmament around the globe is the use of nuclear weapons. It would dramatically annihilate any prospect of serious disarmament. If we are serious about disarmament, it cannot stop at Saddam Hussein. There has to be a genuine global commitment—a commitment globally that seems to have weakened in recent years, I might add—for disarmament across the board with other nations building on the frameworks, conventions and agreements to reduce those weapons and particularly weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear weapons.

For the UK to refuse to rule out the use of those weapons, and for many senior US officials, including their defence secretary, to have repeatedly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons—leaving aside any prospect that Australia could be party to an action that may lead to our side using nuclear weapons—is grossly irresponsible. There should be no wriggle room. There should be no room for doubt or for manoeuvre. There should be no prospect whatsoever of that. Any risk is too big a risk in this area. I acknowledge that some people who are genuinely concerned about weapons of mass destruction argue about humanitarian issues in Iraq. Some people, whose views I respect, say that the choice is difficult, but there is a case. The Democrats believe that that case has not been made by a long shot, but I recognise some people believe that. However, if people feel that there is some need for war as a difficult, hard and unfortunate choice, the least they can do is ensure that there is a cast-iron guarantee that nuclear weapons will not be used. The Prime Minister has failed to get that guarantee from the UK and the US governments when he is in the perfect position to get it, and he has failed to give that guarantee to the Australian people despite being given the opportunity by the Senate's resolution. In his response to the Senate today he has once again left the door open and refused to make a simple, clear-cut, categorical statement of absolute certainty. (Time expired)