FRIDAY OCTOBER 26 2007
On Friday night the electorate of Menzies in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne bore witness to a debate on Australia’s participation in the Iraq War. The event was organised by an anti Iraq War peace group, Unity for Peace, which also supports the withdrawal of Australian troops from Afghanistan.
Unity For Peace website
A lawyer, who conducted the debate in an even-handed manner, chaired the debate. He started the night by thanking the traditional owners of the land on which the debate was taking place.
The Speakers on the night were as follows -
MR. KEVIN ANDREWS, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
MR. DAVID CAMPBELL, ALP CANDIDATE FOR MENZIES
MR. DAVID ELLIS, GREENS CANDIDATE FOR MENZIES
MR PHILIP NITSCHKE, INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR MENZIES
MR. DAMIEN ELLIS, AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATES CANDIDATE FOR MENZIES
Each of the five Menzies electorate candidates were to be given seven minutes to speak on the issue of the presence of Australian troops in the Iraq War, which was to be followed by a 40 minute question and answer session, which drew out to 1 hour due to the eagerness of the 100 strong crowd who’d gathered to ask questions of and hear the diverse opinions of the political aspirants for the seat of Menzies in the 2007 election.
The chair stressed that this was to be an open and fair forum. He made note that the police officers present, four Victoria Police and two Federal Police Officers in suits and with the obligatory ear pieces, weren’t here to intimidate the audience, rather just as a precaution as Mr. Andrews the current Immigration and Citizenship Minister had incurred some safety issues in the past. There didn’t look to be any trouble in the retiring suburban seat of Menzies tonight.
The first debater to take the floor was Independent candidate Philip Nitschke.
Mr Nitschke is a doctor, who was famously the first and only doctor to euthanase a patient under the 1993 Northern Territory Euthanasia Laws, before these laws were rescinded in the Federal Parliament when Mr. Kevin Andrews introduced a private members bill to outlaw euthanasia. In 2007 Mr. Nitschke is making his fourth attempt to run against the sitting Menzies electorate member Mr. Andrews Mr. Nitschke runs a campaign in direct opposition of Kevin Andrews on many issues, Australia’s participation on the Iraq War being one such policy.
Mr. Philip Nitschke's website
Mr. Nitschke opened his speech by saying he never supported Australia going to war in Iraq when the Howard Government first deployed troops in 2003, so inturn was now campaigning for all our troops to return home. Mr. Nitschke spoke well, had thought out the ideas behind his opinion and was well across the issue. He passionately stressed his belief and promised those present, that if elected he would campaign in Parliament to have all Australian troops back on home soil immediately.
The next debater to speak was Mr. Andrew Campbell the ALP candidate for Menzies.
Mr. Campbell has a background as a tradesman and farmer, as well as a representative of workers on worksites at which he has been employed and a recent stint in Local Council. This is the first time he has stood as the ALP candidate in the seat of Menzies.
ALP weblink for Mr. Andrew Campbell
Mr. Campbell stood to face the crowd and read from a prepared speech outlining the ALP position on the Iraq War. Mr. Campbell assured the crowd that a Kevin Rudd Labor Government would bring all combat troops home from Iraq. He stressed the ALP did not support the deployment of our troops in Iraq when John Howard made his monumental position to follow George Bush and the United States, in a military attack into Iraq which was carried out against the advice of the United Nations. However Mr. Campbell detailed that a Rudd Labor Government would continue in the support of the Iraqi people in humanity and infrastructure issues in their bid to build on the democratically elected Iraq Government.
On the issue of Australian troops in Afghanistan, which in this debate went hand in hand with the Iraq War issue, Mr. Campbell said the ALP supported the continual deployment of our troops, including the large contingent of special forces, as our actions in Afghanistan were upholding a fight against Taliban terror bases and were done so with the support of the United Nations.
The next debater to take the floor was the ‘star’ of the night, sitting Menzies electorate member since 1991 and Minister in the Howard Government since 2001, the current Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Mr Kevin Andrews. As his ALP opponent Mr. Campbell had done earlier in the evening, Mr. Andrews stood to take the floor and read from prepared notes and/or a prepared speech.
Liberal Party weblink for Mr. Kevin Andrews
From the outset Mr. Andrews was definite in his premises and colourful in his use of emotive language, as one would expect of a man of his legal background. For his seven minutes on the floor, of which he only required six to conclude his expressions, Mr. Andrews referred to pertinent examples of his ideology regarding Australian forces’ participation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Andrews was very definite in stating that regardless of your position on the merits of the Iraq War in the conflict’s embryonic development in 2003, Australian troops were now in Iraq and required the support of the Howard Government, and inturn he hoped the Australian people. He returned to the reasoning for John Howard and his Cabinet making the executive decision to join primarily the United States, and other Coalition members such as PM Tony Blair’s England, to advance into Iraq with the aim of over throwing the dictatorial regime that Saddam Hussein held over his country folk. Mr. Andrews outlined the inhumane practises and systematic murders Saddam Hussein had carried out against the ethnic minorities that make up the Iraqi people. He also alluded to the terrorist links that were operating within Iraq under Hussein’s regime, focusing on terrorist training camps with definite Al Qaeda links.
Mr. Andrew’s compared the approach towards our Australian troops participation in Iraq of his own Howard Government to that of the hopeful incumbent challenger, Mr. Rudd’s potential ALP Government. He said that Mr. Rudd and his ALP party were trying in this election ’07 campaign to have a bit both ways. The claim was that Mr. Rudd wanted to give the impression to the Australian electorate that he would withdraw ‘combat’ troops, but Mr. Andrews emotively stressed that under ALP plans armed Australian forces would be left to carry out security duties in places such as Baghdad. Mr. Andrews pointed to the deceptiveness of this ALP political play. In contrast, he confirmed to his captive audience that the Howard Government ensured surety and consistency of purpose in the fight against terrorism, by continuing the commitment of Australian forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These two presences of Australian service people in different countries, according to Mr. Andrews shared a joint purpose, to which he as a committed member of the Howard Cabinet could not differentiate in regards to cause or purpose. In essence, under the Howard Government, the Australian service people are part of fighting the same terrorist threat on two fronts, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fourth speaker was Mr. Damien Wise, the Australian Democrats candidate for Menzies. Mr. Wise has a business background. After the smooth legal/political language one would expect of our debate’s only current Member of Parliament - Mr. Wise’s speech was diametrically opposed to that of Mr. Andrews containing a uniquely idiosyncratic nature of its’ own.
Australian Democrats website
The Australian Democrats candidate began his speech by breaking out into a song. What he was singing about I really don’t know I tuned off in embarrassment. To be honest I think he took most of the audience by surprise when entertaining us with his little ditty. The number concluded with a crescendo on the last lyric, even so I still didn’t know what he was singing about, but when he elicited his words in speech rather than song, he asked if anyone remembered the Vietnam War? Maybe he was recalling a protest song of the anti Vietnam War era? At least that is the best conclusion I can come up with amongst my recollections.
So this is how the story goes, the Americans led us into Vietnam or derogatively speaking we may have followed the Yanks. Now in the Iraq War the Australian Howard Government was just perpetuating the same failed practice of involving itself in a War without moral foundations that was doomed to fail in meeting it’s objectives. It was a war we couldn’t win. The above three sentences are my summation of Mr. Wise’s position, he never really put his case in conventional terms, rather choosing to recall an encounter he had in an American airport terminal in 1985 whilst waiting on a flight to London.
Mr. Wise came across a shop counter that included many scientific publications. Whilst reading the material the shopkeeper came up and introduced himself, the man on hearing Mr. Wise’s accent picked him as an Australian. When Mr. Wise confirmed this, the man who Damien Wise would soon learn was an American patriot, exclaimed that Australia as a nation had to be very careful because our nation sat next to a communist country in New Zealand. Our shopkeeper’s reasoning? The New Zealand Government had refused the entry of a US nuclear warship to its’ ports. Communists! Great story.
WE HAVE TO PULL OUT OF IRAQ AND STOP FOLLOWING THE YANKS. THEY’RE DANGEROUS.
As in the nature of the Australian Democrats candidate Mr. Wise’s speech, the content of his speech also proved to be in stark opposition to that of the Liberal Government’s Mr. Kevin Andrews.
PEACE NOT WAR!
Sorry, I got carried away.
The last to walk out to the middle with the bat in his hands was Mr. David Ellis, the Australian Greens candidate for Menzies. Mr. Ellis has a background in local business and if I recall directly has also experienced academia, he definitely came across as an intelligent man, who knew how to focus on a political point of reference and communicate it to an audience in a pertinent way.
The Greens weblink for Mr. David Ellis
CAPITAL LETTERS, AGAIN! The American’s went into Iraq for one primary reason – OIL! To secure the flow of Iraq’s rich oil fields into the American economy. Mr. Ellis stated this proposition, but did not go into an anti-US rant; he moved his argument into his own personal account of the merits of Australia’s participation in the Iraq War. He was reasoned and calm in his opinions but firstly guaranteed his audience that he would return to two very important quotes that proved the primary motivation for the Iraq War was OIL, the two quotes we were told came from Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Lets cut to the chase. The representative of The Greens, said both representatives of their nations spoke words in a candid moment that admitted that control of oil was the reason for entering Iraq.
On this dramatic note, Mr. Ellis rested his and the Greens’ case.
Many hands went up when the floor was opened for the opportunity to ask questions.
At first the barrage of questions came for Mr. Andrews, which can only be expected with him representing the Howard Government - the owners of the unilateral decision to enter Iraq, one not supported by the ALP - and the Executive that made the decision, supported by the ALP, to fight the Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan.
The mood of the audience seemed to be heavily against Australia’s troop participation in the Middle East. Whether this was a true reflection of the attitudes of the entire electorate of Menzies or more a reflection on the fact that this debate was organised by an anti war group, thus attracting an anti-war audience, I could not say. The general sentiment which came across in the meeting, was a feeling of misuse of our defence forces and a strong feeling that the moral culpability that led us into this war, now should lead us out of the Iraq War whilst putting our resources into solely humanitarian efforts to support the diverse people’s of this strife torn nation. The direct support of the crowd towards our nation’s presence in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan appeared to be lacking, such support probably undermined by the loss of faith in the Iraq War.
As was to be expected of a Government Minister, Mr. Andrews was strident in his defence of the role of our service people in the Middle East. The underlying principle that came through in the Minister’s response to questioning was that upholding the rule of democracy was the premise for helping the Iraqi people. Democracy, Mr. Andrews stressed, was something that for the first time in their history the Iraqi people had achieved by going to an election and the removal of the dictator Suddam Hussein had allowed such democratic participation. Mr. Andrews asked the audience to consider how well off we are in Australia that we can share the freedom of the election process and this was a right that the Iraqi people deserved.
As far as seeing a differential in our troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Andrews believed we were fighting the same battle against terrorist extremists on two fronts. He quoted the recent proclamations of Osama Bin Laden to Islamic extremists to take up the battle against the Coalition forces in Iraq as proof that Iraq was indeed a front line in the fight against terrorism.
A first troubling question for Mr. Andrews came when he was asked by a middle aged man - Why the Australian Government went to war in Iraq when the British Government had information that the public reasons given by Coalition members for entering Iraq were indeed flawed. Mr. Andrew’s defence was that the Australian Government acted on the information they had at the time, The Minister of Immigration and Citizenship even reciting a quote a the time from Kevin Rudd, who said Suddam Hussein indeed had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Andrews concluded his answer by stressing that the Australian Government decision was made on our information and the British Government decision was made on the information available to the British Government.
I can recall that since 2003, it has been revealed that at the time of the Howard Government’s decision to join a war in Iraq, British intelligence did come to our authorities that Suddam Hussein did in fact not have any weapons of mass destruction.
In a time where there was no doubt opposing pieces of intelligence which supported and denied, that Suddam Hussein needed to be deposed because he had or had the capability of producing weapons of mass destruction, the Howard Government went into a war on the back of information that in the subsequent years has proved to be false.
Without detailing the failure of the reasoning behind the Howard Government’s entrance into a war in Iraq, the Minister stressed the conflict must be thought of by the electorate in terms of the current juncture. Operating schools and hospitals were now servicing the Iraqi people. And infrastructure, like roads, were now being built. These noble aims were now the responsibility of those nations that began the military push into Iraq.
Dr. Philip Nitschke had an ongoing dispute with Mr. Andrews in regard to Australia’s commitment to taking Iraqi refugees in a our national refugee intake. Dr. Nitschke made the claim that Sweden were taking 2000 Iraqi refugees whilst Australian was not doing enough in this humanitarian cause. Mr. Andrews countered by saying that Australia were indeed fulfilling our duty in this area, with a 35% of migrant intake from the Middle East in the 13 000 refugees we will allow into Australia this year. Mr. Andrews also disputed the merit of Sweden refugee figure given by Dr. Nitschke, saying that Australia’s refugee policy was much broader. This is when matters became heated with both men accusing the other of lying on this matter. Whoever put the claim first; the other matched it. Mr. Andrews assured Dr. Nitschke, that as Immigration Minister he indeed had the right figures. So repeated that 35% of the 13000-refugee intake of Australia would be from the Middle East. The crowd called for Mr. Andrews to be specific, they wanted to know how many Iraqi refugees we would be taking. Mr. Andrews once again repeated the refugee intake figure for the Middle East. Both Mr. Ellis from The Greens and Mr. Wise from the Australian Democrats, said as part of a humanitarian obligation, their political parties also supported an increased refugee intake from Iraq and of displaced Iraqis.
After being patient I eventually got my chance to ask a question of Mr. Andrews. First of all I thanked all the candidates for making themselves available for the debate, making special mention of Mr. Andrews considering his position in our government. My question was of two parts. If the Howard Government is re-elected what conditions will need to be met in Iraq, before a Liberal Government can put an exit strategy to the Australian people? And what is the likely time frame for our exit strategy to develop?
Mr. Andrews began by clarifying that no time frame could be put on an exit strategy, the development of an exit strategy was reliant on consultation with those leaders of other nations operating in Iraq. It is understandable that the local member could not provide sensitive information to his electorate, but to my mind and that of the largely partisan anti-war crowd, the suspicion that the continual nature of the conflict with the insurgent forces in Iraq, which does not look like relenting, meant that our combat troops were a long way off coming home whilst a Liberal Government held federal power.
Combat Forces. Mr. Andrews once again returned to saying the ALP policy on Iraq contained duplicity, this time in relation to a favourite term of Kevin Rudd’s ‘our combat forces’. Mr. Andrews made the case that while Kevin Rudd if made Prime Minister will withdraw our combat forces in Southern Iraq, he will still leave combat forces in such places as Baghdad. At this point I had to interject. I asked the Minister - didn’t the Rudd Government have an obligation to provide security forces to institutions like our Australian Embassy within the Green Zone in Baghdad? The Minister graciously conceded that point to me. When Mr. Andrews continued he still was stressing that Kevin Rudd was deliberately not being completely truthful with the Australian people by not outlining what the detail of the role of combat troops would be under a Rudd Labor Government. To Mr. Andrews, Mr. Rudd was using this term too broadly while concealing specifics. Hey this is an election campaign, things were going well! When Mr. Andrews drew a breath I took the opportunity to interject, again.
I gave Mr. Andrews and the gathered crowd, my opinion on the commitment a Rudd Labor Government owed the Iraqi people and our coalition partners, as an incumbent representative of the Australian people coming in on the back of his side of politics decision to join a war in Iraq. I contended with the Minister it was unrealistic to put forward the argument that Mr. Rudd could remove all ‘combat forces’ from Iraq due to Australian troops needing to provide security for our diplomatic, economic and humanitarian presence in rebuilding Iraq. An objective any Australian Government owed the Iraqi people considering our nations intervention in their country. I also contended that Mr. Rudd would owe some consideration to the United States if formulating a full withdrawal of troops from Iraq; due to the historic nature of our two nations close relationship over a 60 year period. I reminding the Minister that a significant point of difference between his government’s policy on Iraq and the platform proposed by the ALP, was that the training of Iraqi police and army would be conducted in a country outside Iraq, while his government would have Australian forces continue to be train Iraq forces inside Iraq. I believe Mr. Andrews’ objection with the term combat forces being used by Mr. Rudd, lied with the fact that it gave people the impression that every Australian soldier carrying a weapon and all our defence capabilities would be withdrawn from Iraq, when of course this isn’t the case, though Mr. Andrews never defined this point specifically. Rather he continued by saying that such deployments as an Australian frigate in Iraqi waters would stay operational under a Rudd Labour Government. This was a fact that was confirmed by the ALP representative Mr. Andrew Campbell. Mr. Andrews focused on what he considered was the surety of a complete commitment to Iraq and the effect this would have in allowing the Iraqi people to overcome the terrorist threat and develop a democratic government that would allow facilities like schools and hospitals to service the Iraqi people. On putting this point forward the crowd were calling for Mr. Andrews to answer the question. The people at the meeting wanted Mr. Andrews to directly address the point of the responsibility that an incumbent Labor Government held in Iraq. Yet as is the style of many a political representative, Mr. Andrews had chosen to directly avoid an argument which undermined his own contention containing to his direct opponents policy and chose to return to making a plea for the strength of his own side of politics policy. With the crowd baying for Mr. Andrews to enter into a more robust argument by directly addressing the points I made, the chair interjected that he thought Mr. Andrews had indeed answered the question. As Mr. Andrews retook his seat, I agreed with the chair that Mr. Andrews had provided an answer to my question. It may not have been as adequate an answer as the crowd wanted but it was a political answer, by a seasoned politician. I really didn’t expect anything more.
While this debate was held in the electorate Mr. Andrews has represented since 1991, with his stance on our participation in the Iraq War, the sitting member was definitely playing to an ‘away crowd’. And those candidates for Menzies who supported our exit from this conflict were in front of a ‘home crowd’. During question time, this advantage was no better utilised than by the Greens’ candidate Mr. David Ellis. On the question regarding the motivation for entering Iraq, Mr. Ellis returned to the main theme of his speech that the United States entry into Iraq was primarily motivated by the objective of securing control over Iraq’s oil fields to service the US economy. While this ideological slant was unrelenting, Mr. Ellis drew in the minds of the audience by the way he calmly in a skilful manner outlined the failed reasoning given for initiating the war. He started by saying that all our hearts went out to the victims of September 11 when we saw the catastrophe on our televisions that goes without saying. His next point was that Suddam Hussein indeed did not have any weapons of mass destruction. There were no acts of terrorism inflicted on the Iraqi people before the war. And he stated that while the Suddam Hussein regime had been overthrown, the different ethnic groups that make up the Iraqi people were now involved it what amounted to a civil war. Mr. Ellis concluded that this war for the United States was indeed about staking claims over oil & that the Howard Government had blindly followed the Bush Administration into the conflict. Mr. Ellis’ summation brought the biggest round of applause from the audience on the night.
A follow up question to Mr. Ellis’ answer came from a lady in the audience, yet it was asked directly to Mr. Andrews. The lady commented to Mr. Andrews that she had observed that whilst other candidates had answered questions, he would write some notes or his facial expression would change at a time he seemed to disagree with a comment. However when Mr. Ellis had given his response to the motivations of why the US wanted to go into Iraq and what has subsequently been achieved, the lady claimed she observed Mr. Andrews sat completely still and his face bore a completely blank expression – her question to Mr. Andrews – Was this because you knew that Mr. Ellis was speaking the truth? Poor Mr. Andrews definitely placed an expression on his face when confronted with the question he was perplexed and replied with a short simple answer that, that was not the case.
A young man proposed to Mr. Andrews that if he quoted ending human rights abuses as a reasoning for entering Iraq – Why doesn’t the Australian Government enter into other countries in which human rights abuses occur as campaigned against by humanitarian organizations like Amnesty International? The young man provided examples of countries to Mr. Andrews, including China. Mr. Andrews said he did not see the comparison between the countries, as what Australia was dealing with in Iraq was the fight against terrorism. The young man put his point further, but Mr. Andrews only repeated his previous statement. It was note worthy that none of the other candidates entered into the point of dispute to clarify their position of committing Australian troops to stop human rights abuses in countries other than Iraq. Maybe that one was too hard to handle and outside the realms of their platforms on international involvement.
Another young man raised the consideration of democracy, asking how could the Howard Government enter a war when at the time of their decision there were hundreds of thousands of Australians protesting against entering a conflict in Iraq? Mr. Andrews said it was ultimately a decision to be made by the Prime Minister of the day Mr. Howard through consultation with his Cabinet. The independent candidates agreed that any decision that sends Australian troops into war should be made by a joint vote by both Houses of Australian Parliament. The chair of the debate, said this change in Australian law had been addressed in a speech given by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser he had attended the previous night at the Melbourne University Law School. The chair encouraged the young man asking the question and the audience in general to look for Mr. Fraser’s speech on the Melbourne University Law School website to quench their interest on this proposition.
(As of present, Thursday night’s speech is yet to appear on Melbourne University law School website, but should be transcribed on the internet in the near future.)
A middle aged woman stood to ask her question, making the prefatory statement that she noted that the five candidates on the stage were men and that she was only the second woman to ask a question on the night, so she was grateful of the opportunity to take the floor. As a humorous interlude, Dr. Nitschke made the observation that all the women were at the ‘Reclaim The Night’ walk in the city. Earlier Dr. Nitschke had opened his speech by telling us a supporter had e-mailed him earlier in the week and said she was disappointed he would not be attending the ‘Reclaim The Night’ walk. Anyway back to the lady’s question. She raised a perspective on Iraqi society that had not yet been discussed, she alluded to the nature of Iraqi society, saying that democratic law centralised under one government may be difficult to enforce on a society made up of different ethnic groups who each largely took their inspiration from local religious leaders, saying many leaders existed within each of the different religious sects.
She asked how democratic rule would survive in Iraq given these complex and diverse ethnic divides? Mr. Andrews repeated that all ethnic groups within Iraq, under very strenuous circumstances, had joined in the election of government that had representatives of all the peoples of Iraq. While his answer did not directly address the difficulties the lady had pointed out, her probing question did leave the audience with the consideration of the unpredictable environment any democratically elected government faced in Iraq before it could operate to full function and help restore peace.
Towards the end of question time, the chair of the debate addressed a group of protestors standing on the periphery of the local Senior Citizen’s Club. The handful of younger people, who were part of a coalition of refugee advocacy group present to protest against some of the action’s taken by Mr. Andrews as the current Immigration and Citizenship Minister. Firstly, the withdrawal of any more Sudanese refugees from the next Australian refugee intake. Secondly, the implementation of an Australian Citizenship Test that may discriminate against potential new Australian citizens whose second language was English or those migrants who had low education levels. The leader of the group, a young lady, said they didn’t have any questions but they had a dance to perform. The chair of the debate said that we weren’t interested in any dance, but if the protestors wanted to ask a question in relation to the Iraq War they were more than welcome to move into the body of the hall. The protestors moved into the hall proper, stood quietly for the completion of question time, then when Mr. Andrews stood to leave the stage, the protestors began their dance accompanied by a song, with lyrics that mentioned a ‘White Australia Policy’ and concluded with the shout, “Big Kev!” I don’t think Billy Bragg will be hiring them to pen his next protest song.
To finish on what each candidate for the federal seat of Menzies had to say on what they could contribute to electors on the issue of the debate. The Greens candidate Mr. Ellis bandied together with the Australian Democrats candidate Mr. Wise and the Independent candidate Dr. Nitschke. Mr. Ellis stated that as minor party and independent candidates, they had the right to speak their own minds on the issue and just not reiterate publicly what the policy was of their party, quoting this incapacity was a restriction faced by both Mr. Andrews of the Liberal Government and Mr. Campbell of the ALP. Dr. Nitschke agreed with Mr. Ellis. Mr. Wise said that while the Australian Democrats had policy on our troop involvement overseas, he was indeed free to air his personal opinion and free to air to the party the opinion of any member of the Menzies electorate that wanted to bring their personal concerns on the matter to him and he could pass these on to the executive of the Australian Democrats. Mr. Andrews counted that as member of the Howard Cabinet, he was free to express personal opinion within the Cabinet room. Mr. Campbell of the ALP also made the point that the expression of personal opinion was encouraged within the Labor Party.
The consensus amongst the minor party/independent coalition as such, was that the Iraq War had indeed deteriorated into a civil war and the Australian response should be a humanitarian one not a military one. Mr. Campbell of the ALP restated that a Rudd Labor Government would bring our combat troops in Southern Iraq home, whilst as a nation we would stay committed to our deployments fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mr. Andrews finished the night with a bold analogy drawn from history. Mr. Andrews drew our attention to a quote from 1933 that characterised the rise of Nazism as spot fires that would spread across the world unless Nazism was promptly stomped out. Of course to Mr. Andrews this was an analogy as to the threat which terrorism carried out by Islamic extremists posed to liberal democracies across the world. This effort to promote the moral imperative with which the Howard Government had to act to fight against terrorism did not go down well with his disbelieving audience. I felt Mr. Andrews had become frustrated with the lack of support for what he believed was the nobility and necessity that our nation’s military deployments represented in the fight to defeat Islamic terrorists in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The organiser of the debate from ‘Peace for Unity’ encouraged the audience to become involved in future ‘Peace For Unity’ events to help achieve the aim of bringing home our troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan. The debate chair thanked all our candidates for the seat of Menzies for their contributions.
The government Mr. Andrews represents has committed troops in the aim of protecting the values by which we live in our liberal democracy and in the hope of promoting that other peoples can share in these values. I’m sure Mr. Andrews, as part of our federal government would prefer that our troops never had to become involved in conflicts in far off lands. No doubt he, like the other candidates for Menzies, would prefer to be a parliamentary representative through an era underlined by peace. With this understanding evident throughout the night, each candidate was within his right to present their political position at a debate organised by a peace organization - the people of Menzies were definitely richer for their contributions.
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