Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following eighteen months in the planning, on Friday, 13 May a delegation from members of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's Defence Subcommittee left Australia for the purpose of visiting Australian Defence Force personnel in areas of Afghanistan. I as chair, deputy chair Dr Dennis Jensen, the member for Tangney, Ms Gai Brodtmann, the member for Canberra, and Mr Stuart Robert, the member for Fadden, along with defence advisor Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Kenny, made up the delegation.

From the outset I held no preconceived views of the country, the security situation or our ADF personnel serving in the country. Notwithstanding that, based as it was on my previous involvement with the Defence Subcommittee and the parliamentary defence programs I have been involved in, my long­standing opinion of the professionalism and competence of our ADF personnel was only further enhanced.

The Saturday took us into Dubai and directly onto the Joint Task Force 633 Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. The base is strategic to the supply and staging of operations into and out of Afghanistan for our ADF personnel. The role and importance of HQ JTF 633, which provides the national command of Australian forces deployed across the Middle East area of operations, is quickly understood once you receive the briefings which are supplied.

Throughout the day briefs, opportunities to meet our ADF personnel and basic training were provided to the delegation. This included training in improvised explosive device detection and an explana­tion both of the composition of the devices and of the improvised techniques used by the insurgents in making these insidious devices, which have taken the lives of so many of our young ADF personnel. These devices are made with the most basic of materials, and this left me astonished at how they could ever detonate. Despite that fact, these explosives have taken so many lives, such as that of our last brave digger, Sergeant Brett Wood, who was tragically killed seven days after we had been in Kandahar during a partnered, dismounted patrol by Provincial Response Company Uruzgan and Special Operations Task Group. During our briefing we were informed that one particular digger had stood on IEDs on two occasions without having them detonate.

Additionally, we were given the oppor­tunity to be provided with trauma first aid treatment using the latest techniques available to our troops in the battlefield. This included use of bandaging for critical upper body circumstances. All of us were provided with opportunities to fire the standard Steyr rifle on the base firing range, and before heading back to the main base for dinner we were measured up for our protective vests and helmets and introduced to commandos serving with the 2nd Commando Regiment personal security detail, who provided complete security for us while we were in Afghanistan.

The three- to three-and-a-half hour trip to Tarin Kowt, Oruzgan province, in the south of Afghanistan in the C130 Hercules provided a good opportunity both to see from the cockpit of the aircraft the environment we were entering and to talk to troops being dispatched to the province. The flight into Tarin Kowt provided the opportunity to see what have been determined to be 'green zones', in which the population irrigate their produce with the melting winter snows from the mountains and which provide a stark contrast with the surrounding desert land.

Landing on the recently provided sealed airstrip, which was built as a result of a commitment by the ISAF, the initial impression was that we could have been arriving at an airstrip anywhere in the world. The only indications of the reality that we were in a war zone were the many uniformed ADF personnel, being escorted from the flight while dressed in our vests and helmets and, of course, the many defence craft on the ground.

The visit to Tarin Kowt provided a unique opportunity to observe the success of our involvement in Afghanistan. In addition to the briefings provided throughout our short stay, the most telling examples of our success in the country were provided when we visited a patrol base in Mirabad valley, which is outside the wire. The flight there and back in two Black Hawk helicopters provided opportunities to see at first hand infrastructure building in the region, such as a new sealed road—which is opening up the region to areas in north-western Afghan­istan—and the new mosque, both of which were built as a result of our commitments.

Having arrived at the patrol base we witnessed mortar training and engagement on the ground, which involved both ADF personnel and the Afghan National Army. Having met the senior officers and a number of our troops, we were then summoned to a meeting with several local Afghan elders. In spite of the fact that the two parties required interpreters in order to communicate, the clear message from the elders was of the need for infrastructure rather than anything about safety. Additionally, the elders pro­vided overwhelming endorsement of our ADF officers and personnel, complimenting them on the excellent work that they had been achieving in the valley. No doubt feedback like this clearly demonstrates that our involvement in Afghanistan is winning the hearts and minds of these people.

HQ Combined Team Uruzgan, CT-U, has been achieving in the following areas. It has responsibility for mentoring and developing the Afghan 4th Brigade of 205th Corps. It has made significant progress in security since taking over from the Dutch. It has expanded security coverage from 18 patrol bases to 36 patrol bases. It has a strong relationship with a very effective provincial governor and provincial chief of police, which has lead to improved governance and development and thus improved security. It has had a very effective winter campaign—a mild winter has allowed successful operations during which CT-U has increased the area under ISAF and Afghan control and security. SOTG has been key to the winter gains, as they have taken 19 mid- and low-level Taliban leaders off the field. CT-U's focus for the 2011 fighting season is to hold onto what has been gained over winter.

Oruzgan is a difficult area for develop­ment projects due to its remoteness and the harshness of its terrain. It is the poorest province in Afghanistan, and its demo­graphics are really challenging. Across the province the literacy rate is 10 per cent overall and 0.2 per cent for women. School attendance is 20 per cent, whereas nationally it is 50 per cent. Thirty-seven per cent of children do not reach the age of five years, and typically 50 per cent of each village is under 18 years of age. During our stay in Kandahar we were able to visit the Rotary Wing Group, which provided for the operation of two CH-47D Chinook heli­copters supporting ISAF operations. Additionally, we were afforded briefings of the Heron detachment, which provides surveillance and intelligence in the country and the Kandahar Role 3 Hospital. Lieutenant Marcus Case, Australian Army Aviation Corps, who was killed on 30 May while serving on operations in Afghanistan, was from the Sydney based 6th Aviation Regiment and had been deployed to Afghanistan as a Heron unmanned aerial vehicle operator. The Chinook he was in was effectively destroyed in the crash; however, the five survivors, I understand, are being rehabilitated and are in a satisfactory condition.

Turning to Kabul: alongside the opportunities to meet some members of parliament from the government and the Australian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Paul Foley, seeing further work by the joint forces in training the Afghan National Army was a worthy experience. Parliamentarians we were fortunate to meet included Khalid Pashtoon, the Deputy Speaker of the Afghan parliament; Fawzia Koofi, chairwoman of the defence and territorial affairs standing committee; and Hasham Watanwal, representing Oruzgan province and deputy chair of the defence and territorial affairs standing committee.

Later the next day, before we left Kabul, we went up to another base to visit the Artillery Training Team Kabul, or ATT-K. The ATT-K was established by Lieutenant Colonel Richard Vagg in 2010 from scratch, and is now considered a model ANA school. The ATT-K is an Australian artillery-led coalition team, with nine nations providing personnel and equipment. The Australian Army provides 20 personnel to the team. The ATT-K mission is to facilitate the training, advice and mentoring of ANA field artillery soldiers and officers so that they become capable of sustaining a professional ANA field artillery independent of coalition support.

Key to training ANA members to become artillery soldiers and officers has been literacy. ATT-K has embedded literacy training throughout all of its courses, and that model is now being exported by NATO Training Mission Afghanistan to all other ANA schools. Soldiers arrive at basic artillery training without being able to read or write; by the end of their basic course they can do so to a grade 1 level, and each subsequent course will increase their level of literacy. I think the best example we saw whilst at the ATT-K base was an elderly Afghan solider—I would put him at around 53 or 54—who was reading, for the first time, to the rest of the class his writings from the whiteboard. Six weeks earlier he could not read or write at all. So once again, that just demonstrates our commitment and success in this country and this conflict.

Has there been progress in Afghanistan's development over the past nine years? Put simply, yes. There has been a dramatic increase in school enrolments, from around one million in 2001, none of whom were girls, to over six million today, one-third, or two million, of whom are girls. There has also been a significant increase in the availability of basic health services, which were available to less than 10 per cent of the population under the former Taliban regime but are now extended to around 85 per cent of the people. Further, there has been the identification and management of over 39,000 community based infrastructure projects, such as wells, clinics and roads, in over 22,000 communities across Afghan­istan, through the Afghan led National Solidarity Program. Almost 10,000 km of rural roads have been rehabilitated, sup­porting the employment of hundreds of thousands of local workers, through the National Rural Access Program. The telecommunications industry has created about 100,000 jobs since 2001, and 10 million Afghans today have access to telecommunications, compared to only 20,000 in 2001.

The ISAF has effectively, over the past Afghan winter, denied the Taliban its spiritual heartland in the south of the country. Notwithstanding that, General Krause has described the situation in Kandahar as not all milk and honey. But we have secured the area. He attributed this outcome to the mild winter, the poppy harvest being slightly later and Ramadan being earlier this year. The Afghan National Army stands at 159,400, with a projected growth to 171,600 by November 2011. Equally, the Afghan National Police has a strength of 125,000, with a target of 134,000 by November 2011. Literacy is a major obstacle, with 86 per cent of new ANA recruits totally illiterate and innumerate. At 31 March 2011, there were 70,000 ANSFpersonnel in literacy training, while 72,000 had already completed some degree of training. In the words of General Krause, 'Transition is no longer a dream; it is actually going to happen for the first provinces.'

I wish to thank the Deputy Commander JTF 633 Air Commodore Oddie; Commander CTU Colonel Jim Creighton from the US army; Officer Commanding Force Support Team and Camp Commandant Major Peake; Major General Michael Krause; Commander JTF 633 Major General Angus Campbell; all of the other officers and ADF personnel who provided us with detailed information and hospitality; and all DFAT, AusAID and AFP personnel. In particular, I wish to single out all of the highly dedicated and professional escort and personal security detachment who ensured our safety throughout the trip into Afghanistan. Additionally, we thank Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Kenny for his support.

The journey to Afghanistan has had a profound effect on me personally, deepening my strong empathy for our Australia Defence Force men and women. Compounding this experience was learning of the news, seven days following our visit to Kandahar, during a Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee estimates hearing, of the death of Sergeant Brett Wood, and then learning of the additional tragic deaths, of Lieutenant Marcus Case and Lance Corporal Andrew Jones a week following, and then, most recently, of Sapper Rowan Robinson.

To digress slightly, on the subject of our troops and what they are doing over there in the Middle East: it was only two Sundays ago, during a Building the Education Revolution event, not far from my home, that I had the opportunity to speak to one of our ADF personnel from Enoggera base. I think that, by that stage in that particular day, there were some results coming in from some survey where people were saying we should withdraw our troops. But he made the point to me—and it is a compelling argument—that we need to support our troops. We need to give them the confidence in the work they are trained to do in this country and the good work they are performing. I think that is a point that needs to be reflected on every time that argument comes up about withdrawing our troops. We also need to remind ourselves that the Taliban monitors the news that is being delivered around the globe about these matters. We do not need to give them ammunition to detract from and reduce confidence in the good work our troops are doing. In closing, may I sincerely pass on my deepest respect for those heroes who gave their lives. I give my condolences to their families and mates and to those injured in those terrible events, who were serving our country with such dignity and patriotism.