RESTRICTIONS ON THE USE OF BLINDING LASER WEAPONS AND LANDMINES
5th Report CONTENTS

DISSENTING REPORT

This dissenting report is reluctantly submitted. It supports the Committee's views on Blinding Laser Weapons.

The Committee's views on land mines are generally adopted as well except in one area.

Every government has a supreme moral obligation to ensure that it defends its citizens from external aggression. We may discuss matters of social justice and a fair and equitable society. We may celebrate diversity and freedom but all that is of little value if we are unable to adequately defend ourselves as a nation against forces which do not share our values and beliefs.

It is in this context that this report suggests naivety has allowed to taint an otherwise excellent Committee report.

War in any form is horrific. All weapons for war occasion great harm to the citizenry of the participants. Land mines when not laid according to the appropriate standards cause untold human devastation even years after conflict has finished. Australia's world leadership in removing land mines in former war zones is applauded. We as a nation ought to feel proud of our contribution in this area. Similarly we have a right to feel proud for the moral leadership we are showing at an international level in seeking the world wide banning of land mines. Our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Alexander Downer MP, is to be applauded for his activist role in this regard.

The evidence from the community organisations in support of the destruction of our stock pile was potent, persuasive and powerful. However, the evidence from the Australian Defence Forces, the Returned and Services League and the joint statement from the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Defence, need to be relied upon as "experts" when determining matters of defence. This report is guided by those submissions.

The views of Major General Adrian Clunies-Ross AO MBE, Chairman, National Defence Committee, Returned and Services League of Australia are appropriately summarised at paragraphs 3.112 to 3.115 inclusive of the Committee report. This report adopts those comments.

This report supports any international move that effectively bans land mines. Destroying our stockpile provides some moral leadership. It also provides a chink in our arsenal of potential defence responses in the event of attack.

The dilemma facing Australia therefore is whether some perceived moral leadership role with no guarantee of success is to be favoured over the moral duty to provide its citizens with as effective a defence arsenal as possible. This report on balance favours the latter.

This report therefore dissents marginally from the Committee Report contained in paragraph 3.137 and instead recommends:

That Australia should declare its willingness to destroy its land mines except for training stock. It should only destroy the rest of its land mines once a substantial number of significant nations in our region have committed themselves to this course, according to an agreed international timetable.

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