Joint Standing Committee on Treaties
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.
| Senator Christoper Ellison
Liberal Senator for Western Australia
|
Senator Eric Abetz
Liberal Senator for Tasmania
|