Locke Keith: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Locke Keith: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4167] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I think many of our thoughts today are with the defence personnel in the Middle East. We have eight military observers as part of a UN force in that region. We have heard some of them speaking from Lebanon recently on the very trying circumstances there. It must be very frustrating and they must be living in some anguish because our defence personnel have been trained properly and have been trained to fight militarily without affecting civilians—to obey the Geneva Convention. Our officers in Lebanon have seen the two combatants Hezbollah and the Israeli armed forces completely defy those rules particularly the fourth Geneva Convention which has been violated by the sending of bombs and missiles into civilian areas where they have killed many people and destroyed basic infrastructure such as electricity sewerage schemes neighbourhoods and bridges. The killing of lots of people applies both to the bombs and missiles of the Israeli armed forces and to the missiles that Hezbollah is sending into Israeli cities. 
Our military—and our Government which has sent our military people there—is well placed to criticise the way in which war crimes are being committed by the Israeli armed forces and Hezbollah today. Those leaders could quite easily in terms of the International Criminal Court legislation that we passed in this Parliament based on the Rome treaty be brought before that court for those war crimes. They are just encouraging the cycle of violence in Lebanon and the Middle East. They are not solving anything—just causing more destruction and death. 
We can contrast that with the way in which our forces have operated in East Timor and the Solomons—and in very trying circumstances when they first went into both places most recently East Timor. They must have been confronted with people who were using various weapons and killing other people. Our forces have operated in a very disciplined manner and I think it is true to say that neither the New Zealand nor the Australian forces have killed any East Timorese. So they have not encouraged the cycle of violence we see in the Middle East. They have not created grievances that can then come back on a peacekeeping force made up of nationals from another country. I think we can take heart from the way our forces have operated although I would say that in the case of East Timor we have to be a little careful that we do not go exactly the same way politically as the Australians have gone. The Australian Government in relation to East Timor seems to have oil on the brain. It has not given the East Timorese people the best deal in terms of the oil resources that lie between East Timor and Australia and that has been a cause of frustration amongst East Timor politicians of all stripes. 
Of course when we talk about peacekeeping in some ways the situations that lead to the need for peacekeeping are because Western countries including Australia and New Zealand have not necessarily put in enough aid or delivered the aid most appropriately. I think that was a problem in East Timor in that there was a significant aid contribution from richer countries but it was not delivered in a way that removed the frustrations that later broke out into conflict in Dili and other places. 
Also to go round the world in review of our defence forces in Bamian our defence forces seem to have operated in a way that has not provoked a reaction and some good reconstruction work has been done amongst the Hazari population in a relatively peaceful environment. We could contrast that with the earlier operation of our special forces in Afghanistan with Operation Enduring Freedom. I cannot tell members any detail about how they operated there because it has been completely secret—overly secret sometimes—but I certainly hope that our special forces operated in a very good and humane way in as much as they could within those operations carried out jointly with the American and other forces. 
What we do see and it is a parallel with what is happening in the Middle East—in Israel Lebanon and the Palestinian territories—in the south and east of Afghanistan today is unfortunately a resurgence of the Taliban who are burning down schools and stopping women from going to school. Unfortunately that is because the way in which the American forces have operated there—and it is parallel to the way they have operated in Iraq—has created more of a reaction amongst the population and has created the ground for such a reactionary backward force as the Taliban to stage a bit of a resurgence. I think it is true that across the region the way in which the Americans have operated be it in Operation Enduring Freedom in the south and east of Afghanistan be it in Iraq or be it their almost total support for what the Israelis are doing in the Palestinian areas and Lebanon has only increased the presence of Islamic extremist forces. 
We have to take a lesson from that in terms of our emphasising peacekeeping and other things that improve the situation for people including better aid. Our defence forces are really just a component of how we rebuild nations which involves getting good governance delivering aid to get social and economic justice and ensuring law and order—and not only our defence forces but also as we have seen in East Timor most recently our police. We have a very strong role to play through the police. What the Government has been doing with Project Protector in getting appropriate boats that can play a role in a range of activities in the South Pacific deserves some praise. The multi-role vessel in particular will be able to trans-ship goods and men to places like East Timor and the Solomons. It will also be involved in disaster relief and civil defence work and in maritime surveillance work along with the good work that the Orions do in helping to surveil our fishing zone and that of our Pacific Island neighbours. It is a good-news story. 
When the patrol boats come on stream they will help us carry out appropriate defence work in our region in contrast with the previous emphasis of our military which was more on coalition activities well away from our shores more on doing the bidding of American Australian or British forces and not necessarily on achieving anything positive in the long term— just as the American forces are not achieving much in Afghanistan and Iraq today.