Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the ministerial statement. Australia has followed an integrated approach in Oruzgan province with military police and aid workers on the ground. Currently there are 28 members of the Australian Federal Police deployed inside the main Australian base at Tarin Kowt. They provide training to the Afghan National Police by teaching basic policing and survival skills, along with human rights considerations. So far more than 600 Afghan police have graduated from this course. This integrated Australian approach has improved security, governance and development. It has delivered projects which make a difference to the lives of the Afghan people.

To effectively deliver education, health or governance a basic level of stability and security is necessary. To withdraw our troops at this time would simply condemn the Afghan people to many more years of suffering and despair.

Projects include a new waste management facility in the provincial capital of Tarin Kowt, a boys primary school and high school, a girls school and numerous infrastructure projects. Such an integrated approach is critical to winning the enduring support of the Afghans and defeating the insurgency. It is also critical to create better conditions for governance, reconstruction and development efforts.

Australia’s military and policing efforts go hand in hand with our aid commitment. We have currently 50 civilians deployed to Afghanistan, based in Kabul, Kandahar and Tarin Kowt. Their main objective is to work with the locals to improve fundamental government services, such as health and education, and to support agriculture, which is considered to be the key driver for future income generation. Almost half of Australia’s aid money is delivered through Afghan government systems, which is worth mentioning as this is generally considered to be a main tool for building local capacity. Through these channels Australia has been able to deliver important services, such as basic health and hygiene education, and mine risk education, and to improve food security through the distribution of wheat and other foods.

Thousands of kilometres of roads have been built. School enrolments are six times higher than in 2001, when there were only one million boys going to school. Today there are six million students attending school, of which one-third are girls. Health services have been significantly increased, as well as access to telecommunications. These are without doubt enormous achievements when compared to the lives of Afghans under the Taliban regime.

Our mission is not to impose a foreign government or a Western value system; our aim is to help the people to help themselves. Retired Major General Jim Molan summed this up succinctly, when he said:

The coalition’s aim is to help the Afghan people, despite their appallingly imperfect government, to produce an army and police force capable of securing the country so that governance and prosperity can improve, and Afghanistan can determine its own future. This is still doable.

Australia has clearly defined goals in Afghanistan. We are there to deny terrorists sanctuary. We must not forget that more than 100 Australians have lost their lives through terrorist attacks attributed directly to links in Afghanistan. To abandon this process now is to deny the Afghan people a self-sufficient future. It is not in any way humane nor justifiable to consider this as an option. There is a lot of good we can do in Afghanistan and there is a lot we can do to make the lives of women and children better.

There are reports that the Taliban banned girls from school, locked away women and allowed them few, if any, rights. This is unjustifiable and unforgettable. Women’s advocates have repeatedly warned that it would be the mothers and children who would suffer most if Western troops were to end their commitment in Afghanistan too early. Dr Sakena Yacoobi is the Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning, AIL, which is an Afghan women-led NGO she founded in 1995. She asserts that the women of Afghanistan completely depend on the ISAF troops. She said:

As soon as allied soldiers walk out and leave Afghanistan, the first blood shed will be women and children.

Dr Yacoobi is one of those brave women who stood up to the Taliban and risked their lives in the pursuit of helping others. She ran underground schools for girls in the 1990s during the Taliban regime. Today Dr Yacoobi heads the Afghan Institute of Learning, an organisation which works with women to improve health and education in seven Afghan provinces.

Dr Yacoobi is not the only woman swaying the ISAF allies to stay and finish what they began. There is also renowned Afghan human rights activist Suraya Pakzad, who founded the acclaimed Voice of Women Organisation. This organisation assists underprivileged and vulnerable women and children, providing critical relief and rehabilitation. Mrs Pakzad also stresses that women have benefited tremendously through the war in Afghanistan. She said in the West Australian:

In the Taliban time we weren’t women, we were second-class citizens and we were not considered a person equal to men.

The days when women were not allowed to walk down the streets on their own, without being accompanied by a male family member, are gone. Women could not go to school, could not travel, had no choice who to marry and were excluded from any kind of social life—an existence that we in Australia would find very hard to imagine. Life was very dangerous for women. There are countless stories of women who lost their lives because they tried secretly to gather basic knowledge. These women who sought to go to so-called underground schools were hounded out and faced the terrible consequences. Life can still be very dangerous for women in Afghanistan. This is just another reason why the coalition of troops must stay the course. Female representation in the Afghan parliament has also improved.

The culture of the Taliban has not disappeared. Educating the women has not changed the majority of men—and their views—who still believe that females are their personal possession. I have read about women who try to burn themselves trying to escape their cruel husbands and fathers. This self-immolation is a huge problem that still exists, with, unfortunately, case numbers still on the rise. Luckily, the number of women who try to escape this cycle of violence is also on the rise. There are ever more young women who emancipate themselves and fight for their rights. It is these very people that we must continue to support. These women need our support because such a decision can have very severe consequences.

Ten women’s rights activists have been murdered since 2005. Others live under constant threat, like the famous female MP Malalai Joya, who never spends more than 24 hours in one house, in order to keep her assassins at arm’s length. If these women continue to ask Australian troops for help, I feel we have a moral obligation to hear and fulfil their pleas. We are fighting this war for a just reason: to help the good people of Afghanistan to help themselves. Stability and security are the very foundation of this process, which must lead to an improvement of the appalling human rights situation.

Only last week I read a quote from another young woman in an interview with the Adelaide Advertiser. This was an Australian woman. This woman, 23-year old Taryn McGowan, spoke about the reasons why her partner had decided to serve in Afghanistan. Ms McGowan said, impressively:

He is there to help get the country back to a place where women and children are protected and I am proud of that.

It is a sentiment that I think we all would salute. So she should and so should we. I hope that this parliamentary debate can truly recognise the essential work that is undertaken by Ms McGowan’s partner and by his 1,500 or so Australian mates and colleagues. Their commitment will not be in vain. Supported by their loved ones at home and in this parliament, our troops will lead Afghanistan to a prosperous, self-sufficient democracy and future—a contribution for which Australia can be proud. If there is one thing that history has taught us, it is that we must continuously support the families that fight for freedom and democracy, and we must continually honour those that fight and have lost their lives to serve us and to serve the great fight for democracy around the world.