No case made for Australian troops in Iraq, says Bill Shorten
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Version 0 of 1. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, says the case has not been made for sending Australian troops back into Iraq as he highlighted Labor’s “principled stand” against the 2003 invasion. Australia has offered to help with humanitarian air drops of supplies to civilians isolated by fighting in Iraq, but the defence minister, David Johnston, said on Monday he would not rule out the possibility of providing military “back-up assistance” to the US. On Tuesday the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, played down the prospect of sending Australian troops back into Iraq. “I don’t envisage that,” she told the ABC. “There’s been no request for it; we’ve been asked to support the humanitarian response and that’s what we’re doing.” Shorten said he did not believe the government was inviting debate about the spectre of troop involvement in Iraq and did not know why the defence minister had raised the possibility. Asked whether he would support such action, Shorten said: “I am not going to go into hypotheticals but I will remind people of Labor’s principled stand against the second Gulf War. I haven’t seen the case made out for Australian troops, I haven’t seen the case made out at all. “I do wish that the government could give one position in terms of their intent. I think this is a debate which has been let run too long and I do not believe in my own discussions with the government that there is any discussion whatsoever about troop involvement. I do wish the defence minister or the prime minister could clarify what the position of the government is. Labor certainly hasn’t been consulted at all.” Speaking before a meeting with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, in Sydney on Tuesday, Shorten said Labor “unequivocally supported the use of our Royal Australian Air Force planes to provide humanitarian relief” to Iraq. “I think all fair-minded people are upset at the images of Kurds sheltering in the mountains in northern Iraq and desperately needing food while they sustain themselves in the struggle against the Isis terror organisation,” he said. Kerry and the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, are in Sydney for the annual Ausmin talks with their Australian counterparts, Bishop and Johnston. Hagel said on Monday the US was a Pacific power and would remain a force in the region. |