Category Archives: News

No war with Iran: No war without parliament

By: AWPR | Posted in: Blog, Foreign affairs, News, Trump, war powers reform | 27 June, 2019 | 6:24 pm

Our correspondence with the Prime Minister regarding Iran, 2019

Letter to the Prime Minister

27 June 2019

Dear Mr Morrison

I write on behalf of Australians for War Powers Reform, an organisation dedicated to achieving Parliamentary involvement in any decision Australia might make to deploy members of the Australian Defence Force into international armed conflict. The purpose of this letter is to convey our concern about the prospect of military action against Iran.

Australia has no quarrel with the government of Iran, which since 2015 has fully observed the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as verified …

Should Australia be doing arms deals with Saudi Arabia?

By: AWPR | Posted in: Arms sales, Blog, Foreign affairs, News, Yemen | 1 April, 2019 | 12:08 pm
01 Apr

Boys hold missile shrapnel they collected from the site of a Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen. Canberra-made weapons are being sold to the Saudi Arabian government. Photograph: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

The war in Yemen is again in the headlines following an airstrike outside a rural hospital in Yemen’s north west last week which the BBC reports killed at least eight people, five of them children, and injured eight others.

Public pressure continues on Western governments to cease supplying the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with weapons. This pressure is intensifying in the UK, as its weapons are …

Letter to the new Parliament

By: AWPR | Posted in: Blog, News | 25 August, 2016 | 3:06 pm
25 Aug

Dear (Parliamentarian),

Report of The Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Report)

Congratulations on your election to the 45th Federal Parliament.

I write in connection with the Report of The Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Report), which was released on 6 July 2016. A one-page summary of the Report is enclosed.

In our view there are three key lessons for Australia in the outcome of this very thorough inquiry.

The first is that Australia needs to conduct an equivalent inquiry. The Chilcot Report has laid out a detailed account of how the UK came to undertake, for the first time since the Second World War, …

Launch: “How Does Australia Go To War?”

By: AWPR | Posted in: Blog, News | 17 July, 2015 | 10:45 am
17 Jul

MEDIA  RELEASE

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

As concern spreads in Australia about what our latest military intervention in Iraq is for and where it will end, Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR) is targeting MPs and Senators with a call to change the way our troops are sent to war.

All Federal parliamentarians will receive a book of short essays, “How Does Australia Go To War?”, on the political, military, legal and ethical implications of Australia’s current practice. It points out that in Australia – and in only a few other democracies – the prime minister can decide to commit …