Today say the release of the 2007 Australian Defense update the Australian Defense Minister Dr Brendon Nelson said the following :
Energy security is extremely important to all nations throughout the world, and of course, in protecting and securing Australia's interests," he said.
"The defence update we're releasing today sets out many priorities for Australia's defence and security, and resource security is one of them," he told ABC radio.
"The entire (Middle East) region is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world.
"Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq?"
He did then cover himself after his gaffe :
Dr Nelson said the primary reason for Australian troops remaining in Iraq was to prevent violence between the Sunni and Shia population, and to bring stability to the region.
"We're also there to support our key ally - that's the United States of America - and we're there to ensure that we don't have terrorism driven from Iraq which would destabilise our own region," he said.
"For all of those reasons, one of which is energy security, it's extremely important that Australia take the view that it's in our interests ... to make sure we leave the Middle East and leave Iraq in particular in a position of sustainable security."
Prime Minister John Howard tried his best to calm it down
"We are not there because of oil and we didn't go there because of oil," Howard told Sydney Radio 2GB. "A lot of oil comes from the Middle East — we all know that — but the reason we remain there is that we want to give the people of Iraq a possibility of embracing democracy."
It's a shame really that he had just given this speech a few hours earlier where he said one of the reasons we were involved in Iraq was energy demand.
Events in the Middle East have long been important to Australia's security and broader interests, and this will remain the case. Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned- including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great-power competition - converge in the Middle East. Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there. The region will see further turbulence, and Iran's nuclear and wider regional ambitions remain a point of particular concern. In these circumstances it is all the more critical that the coalition succeed in establishing a stable, democratic Iraq that is capable of defending itself against Al Qaeda and the internal enemies that wish to tear it apart, and against potential external adversaries.
It's always amusing when they can't get their stories straight.