Senator BOLKUS (5:43 PM) —History, I believe, will remember today as the day Australia betrayed any sense of independence and signed up to starting a war which was not in this nation's national interest. Tragically, I believe history will remember today as the day that our Prime Minister committed our troops to the control of a US command on the basis of a phone call after an international strategy meeting to which he was not invited.

I ask the Senate to pause for a moment. Put aside all that rhetoric we have heard from government senators and from the Prime Minister. Put aside the words `strategy' and `alliance' and every other like word and just think about what we are actually doing today. We are committing Australian lives to war. We are jeopardising lives from around the world, but the decision we are taking today is to commit Australian forces to a conflict from which many of them will not return. It is so much easier to commit other people's lives when we camouflage it all in strategies, alliances and such rhetoric. But I ask the Senate to stop for a moment and think of some of the footage that we have seen in recent weeks of soldiers and their young kids and families, of the photographs we have seen in the press of people who are just barely 20 or so, whom we are committing to a conflict far away from here in the knowledge that a lot of them will not come back. Just think of the human cost.

When we went into Vietnam it was just a small number of special advisers. Thousands of Australians lost their lives there. I wish this government showed a lot more humanity and sensitivity. Sadly, we can reasonably predict that there will be Australian casualties. We can reasonably predict that this Prime Minister will have blood on his hands out of this conflict. And we should not forget his shameful dereliction of the responsibilities of national leadership which demand of him, which demand of any prime minister and which demand of any minister representing the Australian people that they put the interests of the Australian people before the interests of the great superpower, the United States of America in this case, not vice versa as they have done in this instance.

This debate is a grave and serious one. But I sadly reflect on the potential human cost of not only Australians but other allied forces, and not only allied forces but the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis—men, women and children—who will suffer and who may lose their lives. When Senator Ferguson says that under our system of democracy the Prime Minister will face his judgment, sadly a lot of those people whom we are committing today will not be here to pass judgment on this Prime Minister. As I say, it is so much easier when we are sacrificing other people's lives and not those of our families. I wish this Prime Minister took seriously the job of representing these people when they feel and they say very loudly that it is not in this nation's national interest to start a war in another part of world when we have so many other priorities in our national interest closer to home.

In speaking in this debate, I draw some background knowledge from my membership of the Hawke government's first Gulf War war cabinet committee. That experience has led me, like many of my colleagues, to more accurately appreciate the real challenges involved in the current ambitious US plans. I also come to this debate as someone who is not opposed to the US alliance. I believe it still has relevance and importance to Australia. However, I do not believe that this alliance demands that Australia cede national sovereignty and decision making to a group of extreme right-wing Republican politicians who, for the moment, control the White House.

Australians and Americans share many values and experiences. In this current crisis war is supported and opposed by many people in both countries. In fact, much of the most powerful antiwar material is at present being generated in the USA. Under alliance treaties, Australia has a legal right to say no to US demands. In this instance, I believe we also have a moral right to say no, as we have in the past and as an Australian Labor government did in respect of the conflict in Vietnam.

It is clear that this Prime Minister does not have the courage to stand up and tell G.W. Bush what the Australian people are thinking and think is in this country's national interest. Not only does he not have the courage to front President Bush but we are in the unfortunate situation where our Prime Minister does not even have the courage to front the Australian people. While he sends our soldiers off to Iraq to fight his war, he cannot even summon the courage to go to the suburbs of Australia—Leichhardt, Thebarton, Balwyn and Lower Templestowe, for instance—to argue and fight for his decisions. He does it from the comfort of a TV or radio studio. He is not prepared to go out and meet the people. This is a Prime Minister who is so charged with ego that he struts around the world thinking he is Winston Churchill, when the truth is anyone who sees him believes he is Captain Mainwaring.

This is a difficult situation, and this is a war that did not have to start. The UN process was achieving an enormous amount—a lot more than I am sure the American administration thought it would achieve when they embarked down the road of the UN. There is enormous opposition to this war. For me, one of the main reasons that public opinion worldwide is so solidly against the war is that people are deeply concerned at the competence and motives of those who lead us into it. People worldwide are concerned that the US administration behaves as if it were reliving a Ronald Reagan B-grade movie. They see all too transparently the exercise of might over right by what is increasingly coming to look like a group of latter-day Texan oil claimjumpers.

Despite the comprehensive and consistent efforts of the world's media, people are seeing right through the US administration and they are expressing their fears. The war, we are told once more, is about to happen, and it is happening without real debate and understanding of the consequences and impacts. What debate, for instance, have we had in this country? What discussion have we had? What understanding is there of the regional and global consequences of what the USA proposes? What are the implications for global stability of the numbers of victims and refugees? What do we really expect the invasion to achieve? How long will it take? What are we really seeking to establish by so-called regime change? What are the implications for the international rule of law and the status of the United Nations? Importantly for Australia and Australians, what are the implications for our national security? All these questions remain unanswered. They should have been critical issues in a genuine debate before it reached the point that we have reached today, but they have only been given cursory attention.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, is not leading this country into war with any sense of dignity and honesty; he is misleading this nation into war. We are being misled, as we have been asked to believe over the last few months the fiction that this government had not made a decision to commit—it had not made a decision, so a decision was not up to scrutiny. Further, we were told just a few weeks ago that the PM, when he went overseas on a peace mission, was advocating peace when all he was doing was advocating a war.

This nation is being misled because the Prime Minister wants to go to war outside the rule of international law as embodied in the UN Charter. I believe we are being misled because the case for war has not been made. We are told an invasion into Iraq is an important step in the war against terror. Yet short of a plagiarised and inadequate UK government document, no case has been led to prove the link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Instead of evidence, the world has been subjected to a two-pronged campaign from the USA—a campaign that spied on states that were not part of the coalition of the willing, a campaign that sought to buy votes. It was a campaign of spy and buy, and the campaign did not work because such a campaign was not a good enough substitute for the real evidence that was needed.

We are being misled into war because the judgment to go to war is, I believe, fundamentally flawed. For instance, in 1996 former President Bush, the current President's father, said:

Around the same time, Dick Cheney, who is now the Vice-President, said:

That is a reflection on the earlier Gulf War— one that is quite pertinent when we assess the judgment that our leaders have taken in respect of this one. Cheney also added that if the US were to engage in another war with Iraq and try to remove Saddam Hussein from power, the international coalition `would come apart'. We are now doing what both Bush Sr and Cheney warned against—and we are on the verge of paying the price that they predicted. We are being misled because not only Australia but indeed the whole world has for a long time not been told the real purpose of this invasion. What was the end game to be? What is the end game to be now? Was it the dismantling of weapons of mass destruction? Is it to be regime change, or is it, as many right-wing US think tanks demand, cultural dominance of the region? In this context Australians have been asked to give President Bush and Co. a blank cheque on this central issue.

Increasingly, more and more Australians think that we are being misled because they are concerned that the Howard government's commitment and rhetoric are not in our national interest. Australians can see that their government is making them and this nation a target. Howard, by his misguided leadership, is inviting and inciting action against Australia and Australians both at home and abroad. Australians can see, for instance, that of all the countries which form part of the coalition of the willing we alone are surrounded by countries with large Muslim communities, each with their own domestic challenges to contain extremism. Our action does not assist them in their efforts—we make it harder for them. In this context, Australians see the potential dangers from North Korea as being a priority over a war in another region—and they are asking why this government, their government, cannot see the obvious.

I believe we are being misled because Australia, under John Howard, has picked this fight. We were presented with two options: the UN and its rule book—the course that I and the Labor Party favour—or the unilateralism offered by the US. We chose to reject the international rule book and the protection it offers. Saddam Hussein does present a real problem. He needs to be addressed and the problem needs to be addressed, but the issue has always been: how do you do this most effectively? How do you contain Hussein without giving oxygen to terrorists and terrorism world wide? For me, the UN is the only option. It is empowered to do so; it is on the way to doing so. Blix is achieving results, and his process should have been given the extra time needed. But John Howard and this government have never really given Blix a chance. The Prime Minister has chosen to protect the international rule book by scrapping it, and I do not think that is a legitimate approach.

It is going to be extremely hard to predict, and anything may eventuate from the invasion, but as we embark upon the last stages of this process I think we should consider some of the direct consequences and implications of US led action outside UN authorisation. Firstly, we do turn on the taps of oxygen to potential terrorists world wide, particularly in the Middle East and in our region. Lord Hurd, the former Conservative foreign minister, recently asked, `Do we help or do we hinder the war against terrorism by invading Iraq?' He further asked:

In other words, what Lord Hurd was saying was: even if we win, do we lose? And in so doing, do we destabilise moderate Arab regimes, further undermine the security of Israel and breed more terrorists for the world to handle? Particularly for Australia, do we ignite the embers of terrorism in our region and make ourselves a target? In Iraq itself, how do we handle a potential Kurdish state in conflict with Turkey—a continuing conflict which still has not, in the preparation for war, been accommodated in any sense at all? How do we handle the Shia entity in the south, united with Iran? Indeed, what will happen to leaderships in the region—such as those in Turkey, Iran and elsewhere—in the aftermath of these events?

Unfortunately, you do not find these questions addressed in our media—a media which wants us all to believe that we are about to embark upon a high-tech, quick and victimless war. It is almost like a computer game. It is the same media who told us some 10 months ago that the US would get an all-empowering resolution through the Security Council in a matter of days and that the war would be over by the end of September. As I said earlier, my position is that the UN, the body which has been empowered with the authority in these matters for over 50 years, should be trusted in respect of what further action is necessary. And it looks like it will not be.

I would like to address a couple of other issues that I believe will have some longer term consequences. Whatever happens over the next few weeks, there is probably one relationship which needs close attention— and that is the one between the USA and Europe. Tension between these two entities is not new. Under the Bush administration, there have been deep divisions over a number of issues such as privacy, Kyoto and regulation of the tobacco industry—just to name a few. Iraq comes on top of these issues and could very well lead to a lasting disconnection between former NATO allied countries.

European leaders can see that this US administration has failed the test of leadership. They have seen Bush's proposal being frozen by the world community for some 10 months in the Security Council. They have seen Prime Minister Blair do the President's bidding when the President was not up to it. They have felt the sting of personal abuse from the US administration and its media outlets and they can see a potential for themselves to take a more critical role in world leadership. I am not saying that this is a definite turning point, a return to bi-polarity in world affairs, but at least for the moment G.W. Bush has done what 50 to 60 years of Soviet leadership could not—and that is to put distance between important European nations and the USA.

Whatever happens, there will also be one lasting issue of concern for Australia. We are still defining our role within the region. We had a blemished history with our White Australia Policy. We were working to overcome that. Now we are developing an identity as the deputy sheriff of the USA. In this context, being one of a handful of countries prepared to go it alone against Saddam Hussein threatens our national security. I think we can fairly predict that Australia and Australians will be at greater risk at home and abroad, given the presence of terrorist cells so close to our shores. In the next few weeks, therefore, there will probably be a change in international politics in a manner which was not anticipated by the Republican White House when it embarked on this high-risk strategy. There will be bruised egos and bruised national prides, although it is hard to identify where they will be. To repeat the words of former Minister Hurd, there will be at least one `region of sullen humiliation'. It is hard for us to predict which of a number it will be—USA, Europe, the Middle East, Asia. Whatever one it is, it is going to have enormous repercussions for this country.

In closing, I repeat the point I made at the start: my real feeling and sentiment and priority on a day like today is for the people and families who will be affected by this particular conflict. In a sense, we are far removed from it and we can—although we should not—look at it in a dispassionate way, as has been reflected I believe by some of the government speeches this afternoon. The fact is that we are sacrificing the lives of Australian soldiers and their families in this conflict—a conflict which, to be honest, is not our fight. It is not one that we planned. It is one that we have been dragged along to because this Prime Minister initially thought that there would be domestic advantage out of it but who probably now thinks he has to follow the President of the United States whoever that President is—particularly this one, a President who strokes his ego from time to time and has done so over the last couple of years. It is the wrong reason to go to war. It is a decision that should not have been taken. It is a decision that the Australian people do not support.