Page 3186 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 18 August 2009
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there to drown. I think that we would all have fond memories of ships that have sunk and then the retelling in history where the opposing side has gone and risked their own lives to save the sailors from the vessels that they had just sunk.
The third convention covers prisoners of war. If we look back into our history of the Second World War, we all have very grim recollections of things like the Sandakan death marches, the Thai-Burma railway and the treatment of our POWs, many of whom suffered greatly at the hands of the Japanese. The Geneva convention that arose out of those terrible experiences in World War II has, in some measure, prevented those sorts of atrocities occurring again—but obviously, not entirely.
The fourth convention deals with civilians at war. In the Second World War there were 80 million-odd civilians who died as a result of conflict. I think that the emerging face of war is that civilians are the casualties. The combatants make up a certain percentage but if you actually look at the conflict areas across the world, whether it be in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and indeed if you consider the international war against terror, it is civilians now that are actually bearing the brunt of hostilities. Making sure that there are laws in place to prevent civilians being used, making sure that they have some legal grounds in conflict, is so important.
Mr Corbell did not really cover in his speech the role of the ADF. I note that the motion that he has brought forward encourages the fullest implementation of the conventions by military forces and, in paragraph (7), recognises the extraordinary contribution made by individual Australians, including the Red Cross.
But I would like to discuss the ADF’s role in the implementation and the conduct of Geneva conventions. Probably there is no greater example of a nation that has applied and adhered to the Geneva conventions and a military that has adhered to and set an example on the Geneva conventions than Australia and the ADF. It does not happen by accident. From your very first moment of training in the ADF, the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva conventions are a mandatory part of your training and are instilled in every member of the ADF. So it is not something that is taken lightly.
Nor is the relationship between the ADF and the International Committee of the Red Cross to be taken lightly. I was at a couple of functions last week. There was one very moving ceremony at Parliament House and another function at the High Court. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Australia actually spent some time extolling the virtues of the ADF. There were a number of ADF members there, in particular from the legal section. The collaborative way in which the organisations work, I think, has been a fundamental part of making sure that Australia has set such a high standard in its implementation of the Geneva conventions.
I think there are two very important reasons for that. Firstly, a military is very much a reflection of the society that it comes from. The standard, the way that the military and the ADF behave, reflects on us as Australians. The soldiers fighting in Iraq, the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, East Timor and other places, are simply Australians doing their job. And we want to make sure that the ADF reflects our values, as Australians. I believe that it does. I believe that the ADF has done extremely well in some very difficult circumstances to make sure that our reputation as Australians has been upheld.
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