Senator BARTLETT (Leader of the Australian Democrats) (7:25 PM) —I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2003-2004,Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2003-2004 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2003-2004. In speaking to this legislation, it is particularly appropriate to note the amount of money that goes towards defence. I think it is an area that in some respects has not had the focus it deserves in previous years, but it is certainly much higher on the public agenda these days—that is, defence and security issues and getting value for money and effectiveness for the money that is spent.

I draw attention to a report by Ian McPhedran which appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 27 March regarding plans for a joint Australia-US military training facility, which, according to Mr Hugh White from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, would probably leave no change out of $1 billion. This is at a time when Australia's defence budget is already fairly stretched. The Democrats are certainly not suggesting we should not spend money on defence, but it should be spent wisely in order to get value for money and in areas where it is going to be of maximum effect to suit Australia's defence and security needs. We have always been of the view that our own region is where the main focus of our resources needs to be, and that means that the use of our resources and the focus of our defence activities have to take into account regional sensitivities and regional issues.

The report by Mr McPhedran, who has a degree of expertise in defence issues, states that the Howard government has been pushing for an American training base in the Northern Territory since 1996, but the US has resisted for cost and operational reasons. The plan involves a high-tech, fully instrumented range outside Darwin that would be paid for by the US and Australia and used by both nations. According to the article, it is Australia that is pushing the concept as the US reviews its global military basing strategy. According to a senior Defence official named in the article, Shane Carmody, so-called `scoping options' for the project should be ready by June and officials met with US Pacific Command officers in Hawaii just a few days ago to push the plan forward. According to the report, Mr Carmody told a joint parliamentary committee that the training facility would have no role as a nation-building or peacekeeping facility. It is that aspect as much as anything that concerns me.

I want to make it clear that the Democrats support the US-Australia alliance. We support the ANZUS Treaty, which many people on the progressive side of politics do not. And we do support appropriate defence cooperation and intelligence cooperation. Frankly, I do not believe we have much alternative, particularly in terms of intelligence cooperation, in relation to dealing with some of the threats to our security, particularly the threats of terrorism and other instability, including—in fact, particularly—in our own region.

But it needs to be appropriate cooperation—and it needs to be cooperation, not subservience. The real concern that the Democrats have voiced many times is that our defence policy and our defence spending—which is limited, like all taxpayer spending—is being directed too much towards ensuring that we fit in with the US's military and foreign policy objectives, rather than giving primacy to our own but taking into account other nations in our region as well as other nations that we have historical and current alliances with. We are concerned about putting forward a proposal for a base—whatever you want to call it, in effect it is a base—that has no nation-building role or peacekeeping facility and that will not play a positive role in the major likely future needs for much of our defence activity in our region, such as the sort of activity that has occurred in the Solomon Islands recently.

The use of our defence forces—and our Federal Police, I might add—in the Solomon Islands met very wide approval in Australia. So it is not as though there is a massive group of Australians who oppose any sort of defence activity, any sort of overseas involvement of our troops. They will always be a part of the community, but obviously there is no comparison between the Australian community's reaction to the use of our troops in the Solomons and their reaction to the use of our troops in Iraq. That is because many Australians—the majority of Australians, at certain periods—did not believe that it was appropriate to use our defence personnel for the activity that occurred in Iraq, but they did believe it was appropriate to use them in the Solomons. Of course there is an ongoing activity in the Solomons.

The other key point about the Solomons is that it involved cooperation from a whole range of other nations in our region. One of the overriding concerns the Democrats have about a joint Australia-US military facility or a US base—whatever name you want to call it—is the impact on the perception of and relations with other countries in our region. I am not saying they are all going to turn hostile and attack us or anything ridiculous like that. What I am saying is that if we are seen to reinforce the perception, and clearly to some extent the reality, that we are being deputy sheriff to the US then it will develop and enhance an unhelpful perception and impede effective cooperation with other nations. We do have a role in our region in showing leadership and providing support with intelligence, security and improving social stability for countries in the region. But that should not be in connection with, at the behest of or overly reliant on the aims and desires of the US. That is the problem and that is the concern.

There have been a number of attempts to disguise the setting up of military bases, using the names `defence staging posts', `logistic hubs' or `logistics and training facilities'. But forward positioning of US equipment and weapons storage in Australia for this purpose cannot be disguised as just the establishment of a training facility—it will be a US base. We have to be absolutely clear that this rose by another name would amount to a military base which would house equipment—including tanks, aircraft, fuel and ammunition—and allow the rapid deployment of US troops into theatres of war. The primary benefit would be about giving the US a new string of facilities and weapons stores in Australia which could be used to refresh forces and launch attacks as needed.

So the statements by a senior Australian defence official that any training facility would have no role as a nation-building or peacekeeping facility, that it would cost at least $1 billion and that it is Australia that is actually pushing this onto the US and encouraging them all give the Democrats great cause for concern. There is clearly a real problem at the moment with the military agenda of the United States administration. It is not being anti-American to say that. It is obviously being anti the current US administration's policy, but that is a very different thing. In the same way as we can be, as we are and as we should be critical of aspects of the Australian government's policy, we can certainly be critical of the US government's policy without being anti-American. That US military agenda at the moment supports first strike, pre-emptive strike, unilateral action and aggressive activities in other parts of the world. The Australian defence policy at the moment supports increasing interoperability with the US. That is not the best use of Australia's defence and intelligence resources, in the Democrats' view.

The reshaping of America's very large global military footprint in reality offers the potential of being a very big boot firmly stamped in areas where we really do not need it. That is in terms of security for Australia. There is a lot of very legitimate debate between people across the political spectrum. It is not a Left versus Right or progressive versus conservative debate. It is between people in different parts of the political spectrum who recognise the danger of an aggressive, pre-emptive military agenda and who recognise—as many people have stated—that that can increase the risks of terrorism, increase instability and increase the likelihood that we will be less secure rather than more secure. Australia is already, in our view, being tied too much to US foreign and military policy. If that were a policy that clearly and genuinely looked after the interests of the Australian people then our concerns would be a bit lower. The trouble is that we are backing a US government that has stated that it will make pre-emptive strikes and has shown it will make pre-emptive strikes, and we are spending taxpayers' money—a lot of money already—to increase our defence forces' interoperability with that military agenda.

So the provision of US bases in Australia, in our view, has the potential in such a climate to undermine Australian relations with many countries in our region—South-East Asian and, to some extent, the Pacific island countries—which already see Australia as being too closely aligned with the US. That is not in the interests of Australia. Equally importantly, if not more so, it is not in the interests of world peace and disarmament. We do not believe money should be spent to increase that problem.