Australia's Powers to Make War Need Revision
At a well-attended meeting at Glover Cottages on Tuesday 10 February, our guest speaker was Paul Barratt AO, a former Secretary of Defence and former Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Paul observed that the Executive branch of government had never sought the approval of the legislature to dispatch Australian forces to any of the many wars Australia fought in. This may have been acceptable for great conflicts in which Australia’s national survival was at stake, but it became less so in conflicts marginal to Australian security such as the 1991 campaign to force Saddam Hussein to evacuate Kuwait, the mission in Afghanistan in 2002, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or in current efforts by the United States and some of its more loyal allies to destroy the malign forces of ISIL occupying parts of Iraq and Syria.
In the current conflict with ISIL, Paul said, substantial elements of the Australian Defence Force were based at the Al Minhad Aerodrome in Dubai. SAS forces were apparently mentoring and training Iraqi forces inside Iraq, and in conjunction with USAF elements, RAAF FA-18 fighter bombers were bombing ISIL targets, also inside Iraq, but not (yet) apparently in Syria itself. Deeply disturbing was the likelihood of escalation of the Australian military commitment, the Abbott government’s unwillingness to publish details of operations (and the absence of pressure on them from the Labor Opposition to do so), the vagueness of strategy, and the absence of clearly stated objectives the achievement of which would allow our forces to return to Australia. Furthermore, as in earlier Middle Eastern wars, there was no parliamentary debate before the decision was made to dispatch forces.
Meanwhile, the group Paul had helped establish, the Campaign for an Iraq War Inquiry (CIWI), had not been able to attract support from either of the major parties for an examination of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was in contrast to inquiries held in Denmark, the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. Indeed, a refusal by the British parliament in 2013 to countenance British bombing strikes against the Syrian forces of President Assad had discouraged Washington from doing the same. In most other democracies, parliamentary consultation of some kind is required before and even during armed conflict, and Australians for War Powers Reform, a successor group to CIWI, is now seeking political support for such legislation.
For further information, please see Time to strip PM Abbott’s war-making power | The Saturday Paper
by Hamish McDonald
Report by Richard Broinowski, president