Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The cartoon figure Mr Magoo was a retiree who managed to get himself in absurd situations because of his nearsightedness, which was compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. I am reminded of the character's punchline: 'Magoo, you have done it again!' when reading the analysis of foreign correspondent Paul McGeough. Mr McGeough is of course the biographer of Hamas boss Khalid Mishal and one of the few people in the world who regards him as a moderate. His so-called authoritative analysis—not! as young people put it these days—was his scoop that the then Iraqi leader Iyad Allawi personally shot prisoners in a Baghdad jail.

The thing that ties those comments together with his analysis of what is happening—it is very similar to the Greens' analysis of the situation in Iraq—is anti-Americanism. You cannot judge international events simply through an ideological framework without looking at them afresh, as the Leader of the Opposition has, as the member for Wakefield has and as other members of the opposition have in supporting the government. We do not do that simply because we want to parrot the government. We do it from an ethical point of view, as the member for Wakefield has explained.

We have seen Mr McGeough and the Greens push the near-sighted argument that Australia should not be involved in Iraq, because Iraq is more dangerous than ever. In an article for Fairfax on Friday, Mr McGeough described every possible danger that the Australian military will face in Iraq. However, he failed to balance his analysis with the threat that a permanent terrorist state in northern Iraq and Syria would pose not just to Iraqi minorities but to countries around the world, including Australia. It is very regrettable to see our country ranked in the Economist magazine as the country with the fourth-highest number of people, proportionally, in ISIS—we are punching above our weight in a category we would not like to be in. We have to admit that there is a problem. That is the first part to a correct analysis of this situation.

Labor, along with the Australian government and a growing list of countries around the world, do not share the Greens Magoo-like blindness. As the opposition leader explained on Monday, Labor believes that the terrorist state that has been proclaimed in Iraq represents a threat to Australian national security unlike one we have ever faced. Of course, the situation does not demand that Australia would send any infantry formations as we did in the Iraq war. No-one is talking about boots on the ground. We are talking about humanitarian assistance to besieged minorities. We are perhaps talking about some kind of air assistance to prevent ISIS fanatics besieging other minorities and to give some assistance to Iraqi or Peshmerga Kurdish ground forces. This has not been asked for by the Iraqi government, but when a new Iraqi government is properly formed and does make a request for this it is something Australia could perhaps consider.

Developments in Syria and Iraq are something I have spoken about many times. The issue of Australians going to join terrorist groups in the Middle East is one I have taken up since the second half of last year. In my view, the Attorney-General has focused on this too late. For the information of the Greens political party, the scores of Australians fighting in Iraq and Syria pose a threat to us because they might return home radicalised, with skills that would enable them to be involved in a mass casualty attack in Australia. That these returned fighters are capable of such actions has already been demonstrated. In May this year, Mehdi Nemmouche, a French citizen who is known to have fought with ISIS and who travelled through this part of the world before he returned to Belgium, murdered four people in the Jewish museum in Brussels. A battle hardened veteran of ISIS, he coldly took out a Kalashnikov and shot each of them in the head. More recently, Australia and the wider world were horrified to see the video of a British terrorist brutally murder American journalist James Foley, and the proud tweet by an Australian, Khaled Sharrouf, of a hideous photo of him and his son holding up severed heads.

The doyen of Australian political commentators, Paul Kelly, argued that that photo of the Australian boy being ripped from the suburbs of Australia by his jihadist father into the horrors of Syria and Iraq was an iconic moment in Australian political perceptions of this issue. Khaled himself has tweeted:

… if I wanted to attack yous I could have so easily. …I love to slaughter [Australians] … Allah loves it when u dogs r slaughtered.

Even the self-proclaimed leader of this group, the self-styled caliph, Baghdadi, despite the insouciance of Senator Milne, said in Iraq in 2006 when released from custody by the United States authorities:

… we will meet again in New York.

If Senator Milne does not understand what that means, I will translate it for her. These people want to bring their views, their activities, their terrorism, to Australia, to Europe, to the United States. Australian members of ISIS will go to any lengths to commit murder. In July an Australian ISIS member, known as Abu Bakr al Australi, blew himself up outside a Shia mosque killing five people and injuring 40. There was another poor, 19-year-old, deranged young fellow from Brunswick in Melbourne who was the second suicide bomber of ISIS. These things affect us, Senator Milne and Senator Rhiannon. Preventing young Australians being involved in this certainly should form part of our motivation in seeing that ISIS is not successful. Al Australi's act is one example of the countless massacres, rapes and other acts of savagery that ISIS have affected on minorities in Iraq and Syria.

In an emergency debate on Monday, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Flavia Pansieri, said that her reports:

… reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale.

The UN report was based on 480 interviews and documentary evidence. It said:

Children have been present at the executions, which take the form of beheading or shooting in the head at close range. … Bodies are placed on public display, often on crucifixes, for up to three days, serving as a warning to local residents.

Various sources indicate that thousands of defenceless Yazidis, Christians, Kurds and Shia civilians have been massacred by ISIS in the last few months. All of us speak on this in the parliament. I am sure even the Greens were shocked to see on YouTube, just recently, 250 near naked Syrian soldiers marched off to be machine gunned by these brutes. Earlier we saw the same thing happening to 1,500 members of the Iraqi Army. Again, it was broadcast on YouTube. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in recent weeks, ISIS has sold 300 Yazidi girls and women into sexual slavery after they were captured by its fighters in Syria.

The Egyptian religious authority, Dar al-Ifta, has recently called for ISIS to be referred to as al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria. The Dar al-Ifta hopes to help demonstrate to non-Muslims that this group's extremist ideology and depravity do not represent Islam. Dar al-Ifta's intervention is one of the many examples of moderate and, frankly, not so moderate, Islamic groups condemning ISIS's behaviour. For example, Indonesia's Ulema Council has issued a fatwa against QSIS. Even Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, Sheik Abdulaziz Al al-Sheik, has described QSIS as 'enemy number one of Islam'. As well, the member for Wakefield pointed out that prominent British imams have issued a fatwa against them. I agree that we should not be honouring these murderers and rapists with their illustrious name of choice. So, from now on, I am going to refer to them as al-Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria.

The Leader of the Opposition stated on Monday, that QSIS:

… is an enemy of humanity engaged in crimes against humanity.

He said further that QSIS's:

… enemy is the very existence of peace; it is the presence of justice; it is freedom of worship, freedom of association, freedom of speech and freedom itself.

Iraq and Syria are far away, but we must not be nearsighted. Australians, like other people around the world of good will, may well see violence brought home to them. Only the blind would refuse to admit that these people, the QSIS, are a problem for the whole world. Mr McGeogh and the Greens may be happy to remain nearsighted and cite only the problems and be in denial, as is his namesake, Mr Magoo, but QSIS is anything but a joke. Faced with evil it is impossible to relativise ISIS. We must act. I commend both the government and the opposition for identifying this as a separate and new problem and for acting in a measured and balanced way without going to the extent that we did in the previous war in Iraq.

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