SYDNEY – Australia is grappling with the difficult question of whether future decisions to go to war should be in the hands of the Prime Minister or Parliament amid concerns about the growing risk of conflict in the region.

The ruling Labor party launched an inquiry into how Australia makes the decision to send troops to war after a push by some party members who believe that the power should not rest entirely – as it does now – with the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Instead, they want Parliament to be able to approve or scrutinise future deployments.

But the Defence Department strongly opposes any change, saying there is a growing risk of war in the region and that allowing the Prime Minister and Cabinet to control deployments enables faster and more flexible decisions based on sensitive security and intelligence assessments.

Without naming China, the department said in a submission to the inquiry that the country needs to ensure that it can respond effectively in the face of “Australia’s complex and more challenging security environment”.

“Australia’s immediate region is markedly different from the relatively more benign one of recent years, with the prospect of high-intensity military conflict in the Indo-Pacific now less remote than in the past,” the department said.

“Any shift in these decision-making powers to the Parliament would risk significant adverse consequences for Australia’s national security.”

The submission, which was based on consultation with Australia’s lead intelligence agency, comes amid concerns in Canberra about the risk of war due to rising regional tensions caused by China’s growing military strength and assertiveness.

Australia, a close ally of the United States, has had increasingly frosty ties with China in recent years, though relations have shown signs of improvement since Labor was elected in May. Last week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong visited Beijing – the first Australian minister to be invited for a visit since 2019.

In Australia, decisions to go to war are made by the Prime Minister and Cabinet, though Parliament is often invited to back their decision, as former leader John Howard did at the outset of the Iraq war in 2003. But MPs in such cases cannot override the Prime Minister.

Other countries such as Canada and Britain have increasingly involved Parliament in decisions to go to war.

In September, Defence Minister Richard Marles asked the Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade to hold the war decisions inquiry. But he has since indicated he believes that the current system should not be changed, saying that it enables quick decisions over whether to go to war. 

However, an international security expert, Professor Clinton Fernandes, from the University of New South Wales, said Parliament could be involved in approving “wars of choice”, or deployments that do not directly involve self-defence. These could involve humanitarian operations, peacekeeping missions or operations to support allies such as the US.

During a committee hearing earlier this month, he suggested that Australia’s potential involvement in a war alongside its partners against China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea should also be considered a “war of choice”.

“We are currently in the South China Sea pretending that we’re doing freedom-of-navigation operations,” he added. “We are actually dropping sonobuoys and targeting China… in order to destroy their submarines at the first sign of hostilities. Parliament can and should debate that.”

An opinion survey last year, commissioned by advocates of involving Parliament in decisions to go to war, found 87 per cent of Australians believe Parliament should approve such decisions in all cases or unless there is an immediate danger to the nation.

Just 13 per cent believe only the Prime Minister and Cabinet should decide. The Prime Minister, Mr Anthony Albanese, has indicated that he is open to a change of approach, suggesting MPs should “at the very least” be invited to debate the decision to go to war, though they would not necessarily be able to change the decision.

“We can’t ask people to put their lives on the line if we as legislators are too afraid to put our arguments on the line,” he said. “If democracy has real meaning, it is in moments like this.”

The inquiry has finished receiving submissions and is expected to report on its findings in 2023.