Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In addressing the debate on the ministerial statement, and along with other speakers, I express my sorrow for those who have lost their lives in this conflict. We were reminded of the toll of this war just yesterday, when we learnt that four Australian special forces soldiers had been wounded during operations. Our thoughts are with the soldiers that are injured and their families, and at this time we wish them a speedy recovery. I rise to speak in support of our engagement in Afghanistan. I speak in support of our service men and women tasked with bringing peace and stability to a nation in turmoil. I speak in support of the Australian soldiers that have been injured or have lost their lives in the service of our great nation.

The privilege I have today of expressing my views to the Senate is a privilege that is not reflected in na-tions around the world. The privilege that we have been gifted was built on the backs of Australians before us—Australians that fought in far-off lands for the gift of freedom and democracy. Our troops today are not in a dissimilar place. In the harsh arid lands of Afghani-stan our troops are held in the highest regard by our coalition partners. Their courage, spirit and profession-alism are constantly recognised. They are Australian qualities that I admire and respect. It is for those rea-sons I state my support for the war in Afghanistan with deep consideration.

When I woke on the morning of 12 September 2001, I could not believe what was unfolding on our televi-sion. I will never forget the images of the twin towers engulfed in fire and of occupants throwing themselves to their death to escape the inferno, the phone calls of the trapped office workers to their loved ones, and the ultimate loss of 3,000 lives. I will also never forget the night of 12 October 2002, when 202 innocent people lost their lives in the first Bali bombing—88 from Aus-tralia and several from my home community of Coogee. And I remember Afghanistan in 2001, under the draconian and extremist rule of the Taliban, a regime that executed women for minor offences, a regime that outlawed the education of girls, a regime that destroyed the cultural icons of other faiths, a Stone Age regime that attacked knowledge itself, and a country that sanctioned the flow of drugs onto the streets of the West. Not only did the Taliban oppress and murder its own citizens; it harboured and ultimately became beholden to the extremist organisation al-Qaeda, the organisation that has at its core the slaughter of those that do not surrender to its doctrine and that was behind the attacks in New York and, of course, connected to the attacks in Bali. It was the Taliban in Afghanistan that provided al-Qaeda with its support to establish its military and financial networks. Under the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda trained and funded terrorists to kill. Al-Qaeda provided jihadists to conflicts across the globe. Before the September 11 attacks al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was allowed to become a global terror network with the clear purpose of the destruction of the West.

Our battle is not against the peaceful religion of Islam practised by over one billion people. Our battle is against fundamentalism; it is against militant extremism. It is a battle we cannot afford to lose. Western democracies have fought against extremism whenever they have encountered it, and in Afghanistan it is no different. The war in Afghanistan is a battle of ideas—a battle against the extremist doctrine of a global terror network that gave a green light for the murder of Australian citizens; a battle of ideologies between a belief in the rule of law and freedom for citizens versus Stone Age sharia law.

Our mission in Afghanistan is worth fighting for. We are part of a NATO led force and our role is to help build a civil society. We are part of a mission to provide the citizens of Afghanistan the security environment they need to allow the country to move forward and to prosper. Our armed forces are currently training Afghan soldiers and helping nation-building efforts to help the Afghan people. We cannot allow Afghanistan, after all this, to become a failed state. We owe it to the people of Afghanistan not to walk away because the task is difficult and challenging but rather to stay the course. We owe it to the people of the country, to the children and the women, to support their education, to support their voice and to support their development. And, importantly, we must stay in Afghanistan to keep interrupting an evil terror network.

We are making progress. I am not going to say that everything is perfect. There are still a great many challenges, but at the same time there have been great strides. Militarily, our special operations task force is effectively disturbing Taliban activities and we are damaging the al-Qaeda network every day. There is progress in the training of the Afghan National Army. Women for the first time have a voice in the government. Education enrolments have increased. The Australian Federal Police is training Afghan police officers. And normality is returning to society. As Minister for Sport I was heartened to read that the Afghan judo team participated in the Judo World Cup for the first time, and two of the team members were female. I also recently watched the ICC Twenty20 World Cup, which Afghanistan competed in for the first time, and I read that there is enormous cricket talent in that country that is being developed.

The government and the parliament understand the challenge that is ahead of us. From a fight against fundamentalism through to the challenge of helping build a nation, it is an enormous task. Again, I do not take the decision to support this conflict lightly. I believe this conflict is critically important. It is too important to walk away from those who lost their lives on September 11. It is too important to walk away from those who have lost their lives at the hands of al-Qaeda. It is too important to the region and to our allies. It is too important to the people of Afghanistan. And it is too important to our nation.

I conclude by echoing the sentiments of the only veteran in my party in the House of Representatives, the Hon. Dr Mike Kelly. He calls for us not to leave Afghanistan because it is too hard. He states that we should keep faith in those who serve in our name in Afghanistan and for the nation to stay the course. I wholeheartedly agree. We have to stay the course for the benefit of those who wish for a better life in Afghanistan, for the memory of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, for our national security and ultimately for the security of our own citizens and families.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commence my contribution to the debate on Australia’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan by acknowledging the professionalism and dedication of the members of the Australian defence forces deployed in that theatre of war. Coming as I do from the garrison city of Townsville, I do on a daily basis see and understand those magnificent men and women who put their lives at risk every day for the security of our nation and for peace in our world. All our soldiers are trained to use weapons, but they are also trained to help people who, without the work of the Australian defence forces, would find the quality of life and the freedoms they do enjoy much more illusory.

There will always be critics of Australia’s involvement in any military action. Just last Saturday morning I was privileged to be able to attend, on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, a commemorative service to acknowledge the commencement of the Korean War some 60 years ago—a war that some people have labelled the ‘forgotten war’. Some people will still challenge Australia’s involvement in that conflict. You have to look no further than the repressive, totalitarian regime that still controls the long-suffering people of North Korea to understand what Australian troops in the early 1950s succeeded in doing for half of the people of the Korean Peninsula. Koreans south of the demilitarised zone lead a life of freedom, with rights in a working democracy that has brought prosperity and relative peace to those citizens. Without the involvement of the United Nations in those years, which included a substantial contingent of Australian forces, all Koreans today would be under the control of that harsh, repressive dictatorship which has no respect for human life or liberty.

Any person on this planet with a conscience would want to avoid any sort of war. But for those who sit in the comfort and security of life in Australia, it is easy to overlook the fact that for some people their liberty and future can only be protected if a stand is taken against aggression and political power. Appeasement never works, and World War II showed that. In September 2002 the Australian parliament supported Prime Minister Howard’s invocation of articles IV and V of the ANZUS treaty to support Australia’s involvement in the war against terror following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Our original objective in Afghanistan was to combat a clear threat from international terrorism to both international security and our own security. Whilst others in this place have cited the accomplishment of this objective as a reason to bring our troops home, we cannot afford to let Afghanistan again become an open training ground for terrorist organisations. The best way of protecting Afghanistan’s new-found freedom and preventing terrorist organisations returning is to ensure that that country enjoys a democratic, open and peaceful government and also to make sure that the Afghan National Army is well trained, well led and well educated. We can give them the skills and guidance they need to secure freedom and stability for their nation. This is the mission, currently, of the 1,550 ADF personnel serving in Afghanistan.

Our training mission is succeeding. It is making progress. The 4th Brigade is proving to be an increasingly professional force, fighting better and becoming more capable of conducting the complex operations that are needed in that sort of conflict. Over the last couple of years the Afghan security forces, in partnership with the forces of Australia, Holland and the US, have methodically expanded their permanent presence in key population centres in Oruzgan province. This permanent presence has provided the security necessary for the provincial government to be able to start delivering roads and services to its people.

I applaud the leadership shown by John Howard, Peter Reith, Robert Hill, Kevin Rudd, John Faulkner, Tony Abbott and David Johnston in continuing to support Australia’s troops and Australia’s involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan. All of these people and many more have a clear understanding of the objectives and roles of the Australian troops. It is just such a pity that some of those who have grabbed headlines with comments on Australia’s involvement have not yet bothered to be properly briefed by those with all the information on the role, actions and strategies of the Australian troops in Afghanistan. In fact, some people have a very naive view that Australia rarely needs military forces. This sort of approach comes from those who have never, in my view, shown any great consistency in relation to policy issues involving Australia’s future.

It has always been a disappointment to me that the Greens political party, for example, never seem to worry about the rape of native forests in our near neighbours in South-East Asia and the Pacific which supply timber to Australia, whilst they oppose and denigrate logging practices in Australian forests that are some of the best managed in the world. If those practices were allowed to continue in Australia, it would mean that there would be no call for the sort of rape of forests that is occurring in our near northern neighbours. It is that sort of hypocrisy in policy thinking that is repeated in the Greens political party policy approach to the maintenance of Australia’s professional Army and its involvement in conflicts that threaten the peace and security of the world.

Australia’s troops in Afghanistan will return home, as they have done from every other conflict, but they will come back when the job is finished. To bring them back before the job is finished would mean that the sacrifice of 21 Australians would have been in vain. As the wife of one of Australia’s brave soldiers who fell in Afghanistan said:

To pull the troops out now when the job isn’t done, then, really, all those guys did die in vain.

Clearly, our role in Afghanistan has changed since 2001. Australia’s SAS forces were responsible for removing much of the al-Qaeda threat and the Taliban. Their efforts have meant peace and freedom for Afghani civilians, particularly women, that would not have been possible under that repressive regime. The goal is now to rebuild and to make Afghanistan a place where women and children are protected and can progress, with secure, positive and worthwhile futures.

It is interesting to note that in Oruzgan province Australia has helped with 78 school reconstruction projects, over 100 kilometres of roadworks and the disbursement of more than 950 microfinance loans. We have helped to refurbish hospitals. We have assisted in the rehabilitation and operation of 11 health centres and 167 health posts. Indeed, in Afghanistan generally economic growth has averaged 11 per cent per year since 2002. Poppy cultivation has decreased and 20 of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan are now poppy free. Basic health services are now available to some 85 per cent of the population, compared with only 10 per cent under the Taliban regime. Since 2001, primary school enrolments have reached six million. That is up from about one million when the Taliban were in charge. Of those six million enrolments, approximately two million are girls, who were, as has been pointed out in this debate so far, excluded under the Taliban regime. These successes are perhaps small, but they are successes and they would never have occurred without Australia’s involvement and the involvement of other willing nations in the fight against terror in Afghanistan.

I conclude where I started. Those young men and women who join Australia’s armed forces do so because they believe there is a role to play in protecting our country. They are trained to fight and they are trained to become what are universally recognised as some of the best soldiers in the world. They are there to do a job and, when called upon, they do it professionally and bravely and in fulfilment of the hours, days, weeks, months and years of training that have been part of their lives since they entered military service. They are always willing to put their training and skills into action and to ensure that, by their work, the world is a safer and better place.

I salute all of those brave Australians who have at any time served in the defence of our country. As a nation we are honoured by the sacrifice of those who have given their lives in the service of their country, and I do recognise the sadness and heartache for the partners, children, parents and other loved ones of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Yes, our troops will come home, but they will do it when the job is done and not before.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to also take note of the ministerial statement we are debating today and to support our troops in Afghanistan. When Australians ask, ‘Why should we be in Afghanistan?’ three answers come to mind. The first reason is that the first objective of Australia’s national security is freedom from attack or the threat of attack—that is, the capacity to protect our citizens and interests at home and abroad. Australia has lost 111 citizens to terrorist attacks abroad. All of these attacks are linked back in some way to the freedom of action that terrorist forces have enjoyed in Afghanistan. We have to remove the safe havens for extreme Islamic terrorists and other groups that are capable of extending their influence into the Australian region and thereby further impacting on our national interests. We also must remember the horrific attacks of September 11 which killed over 3,000 people.

One of the principles of Australia’s national security strategy is to support the UN to promote a rules-based international order. In Afghanistan, Australian forces are under ISAF command, under a UN mandate along with about 40 other countries that are involved. If our alliance with the United States remains a key strategic partnership and the central pillar of Australia’s national security policy, then we have a responsibility to join with the US and its partners under the auspices and sanctions of the UN to continue to achieve the mission in Afghanistan. The maintenance of a strong ANZUS alliance is critical to Australia’s regional security. Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan serves at least in part to reaffirm the strength of the ANZUS alliance and indeed the value of the ANZUS treaty. That is the second reason we should be in Afghanistan. The third reason we should be there is for the welfare of Afghani citizens, who are repressed under extreme Islamic laws.

Firstly, there is the question of whether the troops should pull out altogether. That is an idea advocated by the Greens, who support all sorts of rights—women’s rights, human rights, gay rights. I say, emphatically, no. That would be a sell-out of everything our troops had fought for. Secondly, there is the question of how Australia actively encourages potential Afghan refugees to stay in Afghanistan so that the nation can rebuild itself properly.

It is important to point out that Afghanistan was not always a war-torn nation. Before 1974, it had a university and a form of governance in the monarchy. From 1932 to 1972, Afghanistan enjoyed a certain level of peace and prosperity. Maybe it was not what we would expect, but there was a government. The country was ruled by King Mohammad Nadir Shah, who brought some quite modern, progressive changes to the country—for example, he made the wearing of the veil non-compulsory for women. He was actually a supporter of women’s rights and tried to steer away from the more religious fundamentalist forms of government. He also tried to devise a democratic constitution of sorts. But, after his death, Afghanistan was thrown into conflict by clashing factions from the Marxist side and from the Islamist side. In 1979, the Soviets invaded in an effort to help the Marxist uprising. The war continued for 10 years and it was only after America went in to assist that the Russians pulled out.

In 1990 an interim government was set up in the hope that they could forge ahead with democracy. However, the Taliban as we know it today was already becoming quite a strong political movement, and its growing strength led to the overthrow of the government in 1992. With the subsequent invasions of the country and the formation of the Taliban, Afghanistan turned into a haven for terrorism and extremism, and a training ground with al-Qaeda terrorist camps. But now, with the overthrow of the Taliban and with our forces in Afghanistan, there is no reason why Afghanistan cannot become manageable again, as it was between 1932 and 1974.

Over the past decade, close to 100 Australians have been killed by terrorist attacks that were planned and executed from terrorist safe havens in the mountains of Afghanistan. Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan was then and is now directly linked to our national security and the safety of our citizens, and this is one of the most compelling reasons for us to stay in Afghanistan.

While Afghanistan remains an unstable and volatile hot spot in the world, it cannot be denied that the allied initiatives have brought a level of hope to the people of Afghanistan, and that has not been seen for a long time. School enrolments have increased from one million in 2001 to over six million today, including two million girls, through the national education program. They have expanded the provision of basic health services from less than 10 per cent of the population under the Taliban to around 85 per cent today through national health programs. Over 22,000 communities have identified and managed their own development projects through the Afghanistan-led national solidarity program.

Yet, despite these advancements, there still remains strong opposition to the good work that our brave service men and women in the armed forces are doing. Bob Brown and the Greens would have the Australian public believe they represent the majority of Australians in calling for our troops to come home, but once again the Greens are not telling the truth. That is a very minority point of view. The Greens say that they represent the weakest groups in society such as women, children, gays and all these sorts of people. If we withdraw our troops and subject minorities in Afghanistan to the iron fist of the Taliban, chaos will rule again. Going back 10 or 15 years I can recall an occasion that horrified me when I read about women having been paraded before the crowd in a football ground and hung from the goalposts because they violated some sharia law. It has always stood out in my mind and I have never been able to forget it. Is that what the Greens want? Is that their form of human rights? Do they not realise this has happened and will happen again if we are not in there? People will be wrongly imprisoned for years for the slightest infringement. The vote would be a thing of the past along with education for girls. All these things would go the moment that we left.

The demands of the Greens threaten to derail and sabotage all the good work that has gone into trying to make Afghanistan a stable country again. Enormous sacrifices have been made: 21 of our troops have paid the supreme sacrifice and 100 more have been wounded. That is something that we should recognise in this parliament as a contribution that we have made to stabilise Afghanistan. To just walk out of Afghanistan and return it to the way it was would be, in my opinion, terrible. It would say to the people, the loved ones, the partners and the wives of these soldiers who have made the supreme sacrifice for us, ‘You have given your life for nothing.’

Due to the hard work and cooperation of the allied forces, the people of Afghanistan have had some form of stability brought to their country. It is nothing we would recognise and nothing that we would be happy with, but it is a start and it is moving forward. We have to bring stability to Afghanistan. By bringing stability we do face other problems. How does a nation like Afghanistan that has lost 3.3 million citizens that are now scattered around the rest of the world reconstruct its government when these people, probably from the middle classes, have left? These are the things that we have to recognise. In Afghanistan the average life expectancy is 40 years. Less than 10 per cent of males in Oruzgan province are literate and zero per cent of women in the same area can read. We are in a fight over there and one I do not believe we can walk away from. The country cannot recover if we walk out and let the atrocities that were happening before we arrived to continue.

In closing, I want to recognise the bravery and the high performance with which our soldiers have represented us. They are recognised as the best in Afghanistan. I do not believe that we can walk out now. Afghanistan was once a stable nation, and it can return to that state again if we stay the course. Our country owes a debt of gratitude to our armed forces who fight for us in Afghanistan and other overseas countries. They should know that we are behind them 100 per cent. To cut and run now would not be in Australia’s best interests and would indicate that what our troops have fought for—that is, the stabilisation of Afghanistan—is not appreciated by the parliament or by the Australian citizens. Therefore, I support the Prime Minister’s statement. I believe it is a true reflection of what the Australian people want of our armed forces. They are doing us proud and we should acknowledge their efforts and encourage them to stay there until the job is done.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the Prime Minister’s statement on Afghanistan. I have been looking forward to participating in this debate for quite some time. Of course, the Greens have argued for many years that we needed to hold a discussion and a debate in both chambers of this parliament—that parliamentarians needed to be directly engaged with the conversation and discussion about whether we should continue our presence in Afghanistan. I would like to support the Greens leader, Senator Brown, in his contribution to this debate and to reinforce the Greens’ position that we really should not have gone to war without this chamber and the other chamber—our parliamentarians, the elected members of our Australian communities in our Australian parliament—discussing and debating the deployment of our troops.

Before I go on to the reasons why I believe it is time to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and look at the reasons why we need to be doing more in relation to civilian aid, I would firmly like to stipulate that this debate is not about the job that our troops are doing. This is a debate about whether our brave Australian men and women need to be there at all, through the military forces. My respect and value for our defence forces is absolute. I have many friends and family who have fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Thankfully, none of them have been seriously injured. I have one friend, in particular, who is waiting for the green light to go. Of course, his family are dreading the day he departs, and many Australian families right around the country would concur with the feelings of my friend’s family—his girlfriend, his mother, his father and his sister. This is not a question about the ability of our brave men and women. It is not a question about their courage or their commitment. This is about Australia’s ongoing role in Afghanistan in a war that, until now, our nation’s parliament has not been able to debate. This is our 10th year of conflict, and everything we are seeing today facing the Afghan population points to the question: what is it that we have actually achieved? Have we ensured that women are able to live without fear and that children are safe and able to attend schools? Have we improved what is the highest maternal mortality rate in the world? No, we have done none of these things.

Let us look at the hard realities of a country ravished by conflict. Every 30 minutes an Afghan woman dies during childbirth; 87 per cent of Afghan women are illiterate; just 30 per cent of girls in Afghanistan have access to education; one in three Afghan women experience violence, physical or sexual; 44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan; and 70 to 80 per cent of women in Afghanistan are forced into marriage. With the statistics that I have just mentioned, it is clear that one of the key reasons the investment in Afghanistan has not improved the lives of Afghans is that we have not been focused on dealing with the issues at the local level. We have to remember that this is a war that even the experts tell us is an unwinnable conflict—that, rather, we should be looking at how we can work better to empower the population of Afghanistan to overcome the embedded disadvantage and discrimination. And that, the experts tell us—the NGOs, the human rights organisations and former military personnel—cannot be achieved through a continued military presence.

Everything that we have seen for the last 10 years has shown that you cannot deliver effective, empowering community development through civil aid that is delivered through a military presence. All of the statistics that I have pointed to have not been dealt with because of our military presence—in fact, they have worsened in many places because of the conflict. It should be noted that an estimated 42 per cent of the Afghan population live below the poverty line, and there has been an increase of 31 per cent in civilian deaths just in the first six months of this year alone in comparison to the numbers this time last year. We are not winning. We are not achieving the outcomes that many people would like us to believe. These statistics are reflected by our own realities of the injuries and death toll of our own defence forces and, unfortunately, we have seen them increase alongside the increase of civilian deaths.

So what are the reasons? Let us just pinpoint them. What are the reasons and the arguments behind Australia’s continued engagement in Afghanistan? The most common argument is that it is of counterterrorism. Second to that is the reason of stabilising Afghanistan, which is generally linked more to humanitarian efforts. The final reason is simply that of our continued alliance with the US.

It is clear that the arguments for why we are there now are very different to the reasons we were told we needed to go 10 years ago. When you consider that this is Australia’s longest war and that the Prime Minister has asserted that we could be in Afghanistan for another decade, we must look at the grim reality of our commitment. Twenty-one Australian soldiers have lost their lives, 10 of them since June. There have been over 2,100 international military fatalities—but that, of course, excludes the private security contractors, which we know would increase that number significantly. The total civilian casualties between 2007 and 2010 alone are estimated to be in excess of 7,000. I guess we need to reflect on the information that was released through the WikiLeaks website only recently in relation to the unknown civilian deaths that were accounted for in the Iraq War. While we are looking at the awful number of 7,000, we must remember that that is most likely a very, very conservative figure.

When you consider that each year combatant and civilian casualties are on the rise, I think it is time for us to step back and wonder. When we have statistics that only 30 per cent of Afghan girls can access education, when the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan is the highest in the world and when 80 per cent of Afghan women are forced into marriages, what are we really achieving? Are things going so well?

We must remember that we are on a combative mission; we are not there as peacekeepers. If after 10 years our mission has indeed changed and is now to assist Afghanistan with its urgent developmental needs and to engage its communities to overcome this disadvantage and to overcome the discrimination, particularly against women and girls, then our engagement must reflect this reality. It is clear that we must boost our civil aid and diplomacy efforts to address the serious developmental issues that Afghanistan currently faces, but this should not in any way be seen as being able to be delivered or having to be delivered through our military engagement. In fact, all the statistics and all of the expert evidence show that, when you try to deliver civil aid through military force, in fact what you do is disempower communities. The schools that are built through that military operation end up becoming, as they have in Afghanistan, targets for terrorism. So why would people send their kids to that school? Why would you let your daughter go to that school when that school is a target of terrorism because it has been put there as part of the military operations? These are the realities of the things that we are doing but are not doing so well because they are cloaked in the military presence.

The Australian Council for International Development has recently calculated that Australia’s military spending on Afghanistan outstrips our aid expenditure by a factor of 10. So, if we want to get real about helping the Afghan people and dealing with disadvantage and discrimination, we need to start putting some rebalance into the types of efforts that we have in Afghanistan: boosting civil aid and ensuring that we can engage with the local communities and give them some ownership of the projects that we are funding. If we are serious about investing in Afghanistan to improve the lives of Afghan people then we need to ensure that aid is directed to the community, not to the military—whose deployment, we must remember, is largely a combative one.

The Executive Director of Oxfam Australia, Andrew Hewitt, recently argued that many of the developmental projects underway in Afghanistan have been implemented with military money or through military-dominated structures that often do not have sufficient community involvement to make them sustainable. They are considered quick wins—quick projects with quick impact. They are not being supported as sustainable institutions and sustainable infrastructure, either social or community. This, of course, is no criticism of the Australian Defence Force—it is not their role; it is not what they have been sent there to do—but it is a simple acknowledgement that the military are not designed to do this community-level work. The quick-impact nature of many of the projects that have been embarked on means that they are not designed to achieve lasting change.

This war, we have been told, is not winnable. We have already heard that from several voices on various sides of the chamber in the last week. We have heard that from the military experts. We have heard that from former military personnel. We hear that from the various different organisations engaged on the ground in Afghanistan. The mission that we embarked on is not winnable. If we are serious about helping the Afghan people to overcome disadvantage and discrimination and ensuring that we can deliver lasting change, we need to change our strategy.

In 2009, a study by the Afghan Ministry of Education and the World Bank found that schools supported and constructed by military forces were perceived by local Afghans to be at much higher risk of being attacked than the civilian-constructed schools. When we look at those statistics—only 30 per cent of Afghan girls going to school—we need to think about why that is. Yes, the infrastructure in many of those communities is not there. Yes, the teachers have not got the training. Yes, we need to invest in those communities and those education systems. Yes, we need a boost in civil aid to do that. Yes, we need to engage with the local non-profit and non-government organisations to do that. Yes, we need to engage with the experts. But we need to learn that delivering these quick-fix, quick-impact measures through the military deployment is not achieving success. We may have schools built, but there are no kids there, and the kids that are there are often targeted because of the impact. You cannot deliver long-lasting community social change through a combat military presence. History has taught us that, and what has been going on in the last 10 years in Afghanistan is teaching us that. We need to heed those warning signs. We need to be focusing on long-term solutions, not quick fixes or bandaid solutions. We need measures that address Australia’s role in helping the Afghan people directly.

As I said at the outset, this debate is not about doubting the amazing, brave, good job that our troops are doing in Afghanistan. My heart goes out to them and to their families, who are here waiting for them to come home. This is not about questioning their courage, their bravery or their commitment. This is about saying that, as the arm of parliament that keeps the government responsible, we need to seriously consider the impact that we are having on the Afghani people and the risk at which we put the lives of our young Australian men and women and think about how we can safely bring our troops home. There is no question that this is inevitable—it is inevitable—but how much longer do we have to wait? How much longer are we going to expect them to be in harm’s way before we bite the bullet and accept the inevitable truth that this war—this mission that we have been set—is unwinnable? If we really want to help the Afghani people, we need to engage them. We need to ensure that they feel safe sending their kids to the schools that are built.

We need to bring our troops home. I think it is wonderful that we have this opportunity to have this discussion in our chamber, but I am sad that it has taken nearly 10 years to have the discussion. I think it is a good thing that the government, the opposition and the crossbenches have been able to participate in this discussion, but I do not want us to fail to accept the realities that we face and instead simply continue down this blind path. Our troops must be brought home and we must engage the Afghani people in helping them overcome the discrimination and disadvantages that we have not helped them with to date. In fact, in some places we have made the situation worse, and I am very sorry.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to contribute to this very important discussion on Afghanistan. This is a very sombre and serious debate because it goes to perhaps the most important of all topics that we in this parliament could ever discuss—people’s lives. First and foremost, the decisions made within this parliament and by our executive go very directly to both the lives of our service personnel—our men and women in uniform who we deploy overseas, do their all in the name of Australia and put their lives on the line as a result of those decisions—and the lives of their families and friends. This discussion also goes to the lives of the people of Afghanistan. Whenever we deploy our service personnel overseas, it is not just their lives and the lives of their loved ones that are affected but also the lives of the people within the country to which we deploy those service personnel. Lastly, this debate also touches on the lives of people the world over who are at risk of terrorist activities. That encompasses so many people in so many countries which have a cultural outlook and a level of freedom and development much like our own.

Decisions that impact on lives and threaten lives cannot and should never be taken lightly, and that is why I join with others in welcoming the discussion of these matters in this place. It is helpful at this juncture after many years of conflict in Afghanistan—longer than other military operations that Australia has been involved in—for us to ensure that the commitment of this parliament is resolute behind the mission, that there is a strong bipartisan unity behind the mission our troops are undertaking and that we send a clear signal to the people of Afghanistan, to our allies and to others that we are there to see the job through.

In addition to its being a serious debate because of the impact of the conflict on the lives of so many people, this is equally a serious debate because of its impact on our international relations and the development of the world as a whole and Afghanistan in particular, which is the country that we are talking about. This discussion is about not just the impact of the war on our relations with Afghanistan but also the development of and changes in Afghanistan, topics which I will return to shortly. As with Afghanistan, we need to ensure that Pakistan, which has seen increasing terrorist activity over the years of our engagement in Afghanistan and which is a nuclear state, does not become the type of safe haven for terrorists that we have been working against in Afghanistan. There is also the question of our relations with our coalition partners—our traditional allies and friends as fellow nations of the free world with whom we have built lasting relationships. We rely upon them and expect them to be there to work with and defend us in times of need, and they rightly and reasonably expect that we will be there to work with and help defend them in their hour of need.

Australia has played a serious role in the conflict in Afghanistan from day one. We are currently the 11th largest force in the country. That is perhaps misunderstood. Many people believe, perhaps as a result of the composition of the coalition of the willing that engaged in the Iraq conflict, that Australia is a standout contributor in Afghanistan. It is true that we are a standout contributor, but it is also true that we are one of many standout contributors. We are the largest non-NATO force in Afghanistan. However, we need to note that there are not merely one or two but 10 other countries with a larger troop presence in Afghanistan than ours, and there are many other countries with a smaller presence. This is a truly multinational force working, we hope, towards a very positive end to this conflict.

Currently we have 1,550 personnel or thereabouts serving in Afghanistan, playing a leading role in security in the Oruzgan province in particular—long a Taliban heartland. It is an area that is at the centre of reforming Afghanistan, the centre of where we need to succeed if we are to have a positive impact in the long run. Our involvement has not been an easy one, not an easy one at all. Our role there, our remit, the partner countries we have worked with and the provinces we have worked within have at times changed over the course of our involvement since 2001. The level of our deployment has fluctuated, so we have seen variations to the extent of our commitment and involvement. But it is true to say that throughout that time the overwhelming spirit of the commitment by Australia to Afghanistan has been a strong one.

It has also not been easy because we have had casualties. More than 150 of our personnel have suffered injuries, some of them quite serious. And, as has been mentioned by probably all members and senators in this debate, 21 of our servicemen have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Australia as part of our army. They follow in the path of many before them who have paid that sacrifice in other conflicts defending Australia’s way of life and our hopes for the future.

It is not just those immediately obvious casualties that we need to reflect upon. There will also be challenges in casualties for years to come with regard to mental health that Australia needs to be conscious of. It will not just be the commitment of this government or the next government to the Afghanistan conflict that will be important; it will be the commitment of many more governments to come to care for and ensure the protection and rights of the personnel who have served there and served our country with such honour and distinction.

Overall, I believe Australians do have much to be proud of for our involvement there. I will return to some of the achievements on the ground in Afghanistan, but I think most importantly we in this place need to reflect on the outstanding service of those men and women whom we have sent to Afghanistan over this time. Australians in uniform have gone there and there are many others who have worked alongside them from other countries, as well as non-uniform personnel and those from non-government organisations. They have all been working towards a better Afghanistan, a safer Afghanistan and a safer world as a result.

Importantly, at the heart of this debate are questions. Why are we there? Should we still be there? Should we stay there? When will the job be done? These are not easy questions, and I am not someone who approaches them, particularly the question of when the job will be done, like I somehow have the wisdom of Solomon. There will always be elements of judgement in this, and it is judgement best exercised by our military commanders, by the leadership of Afghanistan, by our own political leadership here in Australia and by our allies through NATO and throughout the rest of the world.

But why we are there is in many ways easy to answer. You can put it down to a one-word answer, if you want, and that one word is ‘terrorism’. It is an evil scourge of extremist, fundamentalist-driven terrorism. I think back to September 11, 2001. I know that people of my parents’ generation would say that one of the defining moments of their lives where time stood still and they forever remembered where they were was when they heard of the assassination of President Kennedy. For my generation one of those defining moments will forever be where we were when we heard of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the attacks of September 11, 2001. I was living in this fair city, not far from this building, at that time and I remember the night vividly, I remember the very little sleep that I got that night as the true horror of what was occurring unfolded. We should remember that night and the other terrorist instances when we come to this debate. We must remember why it is we went there in the first place and what it is that we are trying to prevent from happening again. Those terrorist attacks, and others, brought a new form of warfare to the world, a brutal warfare. It was brutal in particular because it was so random in its attacks and who it struck and where it struck. It could be anyone anywhere. In particular, they were attacks aimed at striking at our way of life. That is the summary. The interest of the terrorists is to attack our way of life in countries like Australia and those of our allies around the world.

People found that they could be threatened anywhere at any time, whether it was sitting at a desk in their offices in New York, enjoying a nightclub visit in Bali, travelling on the London Underground, turning up to work at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta or simply berthing a ship in Sudan. Australians and those people from our allied nations found real threats to life day after day after day that were totally random as a result of these terrorist organisations, and the terrorism grew out of a fundamentalism that was encouraged and fostered in Afghanistan.

It grew out of that fundamentalism of al-Qaeda. It was a direct result of the support of the Taliban, in Afghanistan, that allowed terrorists to flourish and to undertake some of these atrocities. Not only did the Taliban promote violence to the rest of the world, but we should also never forget that in their own country, Afghanistan, they were a repressive regime with a terrible record against their own people. This was a regime of violence and oppression. It was a regime that I do not think anybody in this place would stand up for—neither the fundamentalist views they sought to impose nor the way they went about trying to impose them.

It is for the sake of our own security and for the security of the world—and hopefully for the security of and a better life for the Afghan people—that we came to be in Afghanistan; that we came to be part of this conflict. Our goal must be to ensure that Afghanistan does not return to being such a safe haven for terrorists in the future.

When will our time there be done? I do not know. Others in this debate have speculated. Some have called for it to be immediate. To me, it is quite clear that Afghanistan is not ready for our immediate withdrawal. To me, it is quite clear that fixing a specific time frame right now is unlikely to help—because the only message that sends to the terrorists is that if you wait then you will win.

We need to ensure that we leave Afghanistan in a condition where it is best placed to fend for itself. It may not be left as the type of country that we would aspire to live in, or that we would aspire for Australia, but at least it may be left as a country with a relative level of security, with a relatively stable government, with a capacity to function and to have functioning internal systems and, of course, with a strong internal security force that is committed to the stability of the country and to ensuring law abidance within that country. I would hope that we are leaving Afghanistan as a place that is no longer a haven for terrorists, where it can no longer feed the type of terrorist activity that spawned those attacks of 11 September or the various other terrorist attacks.

That is why Australia’s military operations are so committed to delivering the type of training and support in Afghanistan that will leave individuals and communities better equipped to look after themselves into the future—the type of country about which I just spoke. That is why we have ploughed resources in targeted province-by-province localities, as an international force—ensuring that each province is ideally slowly but surely transitioned to one of self-sufficiency. In doing so, we can transition the entire country. It will never be perfect. I suspect that we will have many doubts about the type of government and some of the decisions of government in Afghanistan for many years to come. But we are looking to leave a country that is no longer a threat to the world and, ideally, no longer a threat to itself.

My leader in the other place, Mr Abbott, spoke about what type of progress had to be achieved in this debate, and his words were that progress has to be made family by family, village by village and district by district. Those words are right. They are right not just in a military sense but also in a sense of building a civic society and in the sense of providing the type of humanitarian advancements that we aspire to see throughout developing countries.

Senator Hanson-Young, in contributing to this debate, highlighted a number of human rights issues. She highlighted a number of concerns about aid. Let me say that I agree with those concerns, but I expect them to be exercised in a markedly different way. I expect them to actually be supported by our military. I want to see our military supporting humanitarian outcomes. I want to see greater aid funding. I want to see that aid funding working to an outcome to support the entire Afghan population.

Debate interrupted.