21 October 2002

The recent bombings in Bali are an example of yet another country where terrorism is present. The fact that Australians have suffered dreadful death and injury from these bombings, just as we did in New York on September 11 last year, demonstrates how terrorism is of concern to Australia, wherever it occurs in the world.

Australia should be doing all we can to combat this very real threat, however this does not include destroying nations that could be viewed as the place terrorists come from, if those nations are prepared to do all they can to bring terrorists to justice.

The continual refusal by Iraq to honour the pledges they made at the conclusion of their eviction from Kuwait is a cause for great concern. We earnestly hope that the endeavours being made by the UN to ensure that inspections of potential sites that could produce weapons of mass destruction prove successful. We believe force should only be used to ensure the UN are able to access all areas of Iraq that could be viewed as storage or manufacturing centres for these weapons, if permission is not granted by Iraq.

The recent progress being made to ensure agreement between permanent members of the UN Security Council and Iraq is very encouraging and we hope a strong UN inspection team that is unfettered will stop all talk of a unilateral declaration of war by the USA and the UK, supported by Australia.

However, if all these efforts come to naught, then we call on the Australian Government to refrain from endorsing any unilateral action, but to continue to use diplomatic means to ensure that war is not started by Western countries that still acknowledge a Christian ethic as a keystone of our laws and way of life.

Whatever the provocation, we must never turn away from the vision of an order based on international law, instead of the unilateral use of force by a group of countries acting outside the UN and international law.

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