Liberal, Labor debate Iran
IRAN “is perhaps the biggest security question of our age”, Liberal backbencher Alex Hawke said in a debate in federal Parliament on Monday, as both sides of politics agreed on the threat posed by the Islamic Republic.
IRAN “is perhaps the biggest security question of our age”, Liberal backbencher Alex Hawke said in a debate in federal Parliament on Monday, as both sides of politics agreed on the threat posed by the Islamic Republic.
However, the two sides of the House could not completely agree on what Australia’s policy towards it should be, a major sticking point being the government’s decision to send two high-profile delegates to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran last August.
A motion brought by Liberal Cowan MP Luke Simpkins noted that decision and outlined Iran’s imprisonment of political activists, journalists and political opposition leaders and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, while raising concerns about the fairness of its electoral system ahead of a presidential poll this June.
It called for release of political prisoners in Iran and a further toughening of sanctions to pressure the regime into opening its nuclear facilities for inspection.
“They [Iran] claim to want to lead the Islamic world and to wipe their enemies – namely, Israel – off the face of the earth,” Simpkins said.
“Iran has a sense of entitlement as the dominator in the region, which leads to fears that they are willing to go to extreme measures in acquiring this domination.”
He added that Iran’s 2009 elections were an indicator that this year’s poll was unlikely to be conducted legitimately, and expressed a view that Australia maintaining diplomatic ties with Iran suggested it was not serious in isolating it.
Liberal Kooyong MP Josh Frydenberg said Australia had “a responsibility to use our chairmanship of the United Nations sanctions committee to do more to stop Iran”.
“It is time for Iran to come to the negotiation table, come clean with its nuclear weapons program and be a proper citizen of the world,” he added.
Labor Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby said sanctions had halved Iran’s oil exports, causing a loss of $50 billion “in hard currency” in one year.
Noting that US President Barack Obama declared in 2012 that his policy was preventing rather than containing a nuclear Iran, he said: “I hope the combination of diplomacy, including the fearless work of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and sanctions will eventually persuade the regime in Iran, whether it is Khamenei or the next president, that developing a nuclear weapon is not worth the risk.”
Meanwhile, Labor Canberra MP Gai Brodtmann refuted opposition claims that Australia’s attendance at the NAM summit had lent legitimacy to Iran.
“Our robust sanctions measures, our public commentary and our role in the UN Security Council speak for themselves,” she said.
“We wanted to support this motion and could easily have achieved a bipartisan motion that represented our collective interests and concerns on this important issue.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg.
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