Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Hansard source

The deployment of Australian forces to East Timor has the firm support of both sides of the Australian parliament. The Australian Labor Party has fully endorsed the deployment that has taken place. It is very much in Australia’s interests that we see a functioning, effective state of East Timor and indeed of other nations in our region. It is important for their wellbeing that they have the opportunity to develop free societies with improved standards of living. It is also important for Australia’s own interests that we live in a region where countries are able to enjoy prosperity and a good standard of living in a free and open society.

For these and many other reasons it is important that we do what we can to assist East Timor. On this occasion, all of the relevant authorities in East Timor, confronted with a very serious civil unrest situation, requested the involvement of Australian troops and the United Nations. The deployment of Australians is a key part of the international effort in East Timor at the moment. At the outset I want to recognise the enormous talents, the professionalism and capability of the Australian defence men and women. We say that often in this place in debates of this kind. A number of us have had the great pleasure of seeing our defence forces in different roles. Some of us are honoured to have military establishments within our electorates, and I am certainly pleased that one of our largest Army bases is within the electorate of Brisbane. The people involved are people of the highest calibre. But what strikes me in these sorts of deployments is the nearly unique capacity Australians have to deal with situations in a low-key, disarming manner. In areas of civil unrest around the world you see military forces who are a bit like fish out of water—they may well be trained to conduct a battlefield activity, a conventional warlike activity in a conventional warlike environment yet often have difficulty coping with the rigours and uniqueness of civil unrest situations. But something in the Australian nature seems to equip our men and women in the services with a rare talent in that respect.

We have seen it on display in the last couple of weeks, and we saw it on display in the first deployment to East Timor a couple of years ago. I well recall the situation where unhappy crowds, gathered waiting for a food distribution that had not arrived, were getting out of hand. The scene could very easily have become an ugly, violent situation. It was brought under control by an Australian Army corporal who decided to get up on the stage and start singing. The hundreds of people who were getting very angry and upset decided they would start singing along—and a situation that could have become volatile was immediately disarmed, not by weapons but by smart thinking and that unique characteristic that Australians seem to have on display. It is not a new thing; it is not something that has just been acquired by the men and women of the Defence Force. We have seen it over the years. We saw it when Australian defence forces led the United Nations effort in Cambodia to assist after the terrible atrocities of the Pol Pot regime. A command that was led by an Australian, General John Sanderson, displayed the same degree of effective diplomacy on the streets.

A third example I would cite is the Australian contingent that went to Somalia that, unlike the other contingents there, particularly the Americans, managed to establish a good rapport and relationship with the local community. They established schools and had a local police force and a local judiciary operating. They were respected for their capacity to do those things. It is a rare talent amongst military men and women around the world. We can look to plenty of other examples where environments of civil disobedience and civil unrest have not produced that sort of response from military personnel who, I suspect, in other examples—not in the Australian examples—tend to see resolution of those problems through normal military means. They do not work in this sort of environment. Australians are very good in it. That is one of the reasons I am pleased to see Australia involved significantly in this effort—I think we can actually make a difference.

I am concerned, though, that our troops are given the resources to do the task and that there are sufficient people there to undertake the task. It seems to me from the information that is publicly available that there are insufficient resources presently in East Timor to provide the level of support that is needed to quell the unrest and to enable the rebuilding to commence—the confidence rebuilding as well as the material rebuilding. But the first step is to establish peace and good order so that confidence is re-established. There have been too many reports of ongoing problems not just in Dili but outside of Dili where that unrest continues.

I think there is a very good case for the international community to be looking at increased resources. I say the ‘international community’, because I fear that the Australian defence forces are about as stretched as they can get. I am not sure that the Australian defence forces have great additional capacity to add to the troop numbers that are already in East Timor. But it does, I think, cause us all some worry to see as recently as last week ongoing violence, including against people involved in the political and government processes, in East Timor. Those things should not be happening. We should have international forces there, on the ground, at the request of the authorities of East Timor to maintain order so that those acts of violence—which by some reports are now being targeted at individuals for political reasons—end.

It is not possible to establish law and order—it is certainly not possible to get the political resolution that is the first step on the road to recovery—in East Timor while people who are central to that political recovery are themselves victims of violence. We have not got enough people on the ground. We need more there. I do not think the Australian Defence Force could be asked to stretch itself much thinner than it is at the moment. The Australian government, along with the East Timorese government, should be doing everything it can to seek further assistance from others.

The same problem exists not just with law enforcement and armed forces personnel but also with humanitarian support. Even today there are reports of people who still have no shelter—nowhere to live—in spite of the arrival in the last 24 hours of one of the largest single shipments of humanitarian aid since the crisis occurred. There are far too many people without a place to sleep safely and without the food and clothing they need for basic subsistence.

There does need to be a renewed international effort. Australia has a special responsibility in all of this. We should not simply be content with the effort of our military to be there in significant but, in my view, not sufficient numbers to do the job required. We have an obligation to use our good offices at the United Nations and in a bilateral way with other countries to seek further humanitarian support for East Timor.

I cannot help but take this opportunity to also make some comment about the government’s current position in respect of the serving personnel and whether or not service in East Timor qualifies as warlike service for the benefit of their remuneration. I was surprised when I saw the news that the Minister for Defence and the government had taken the decision that the deployment of Australian troops in East Timor was not warlike and, therefore, the serving personnel would not be receiving the normal additional payments that Australian troops receive on service abroad in warlike situations.

I can remember when the Prime Minister made the announcement—not that long ago—that we were sending troops to East Timor. In that very announcement the Prime Minister said that we should do this, understanding that there may be casualties, that this was a dangerous task these Australian troops were embarking upon. How on earth can the Prime Minister stand before the people of Australia and say that and then tell the very troops that he has just sent to East Timor that they are not in a dangerous environment?

I have to tell you that it does not matter whether it is an Iraqi insurgency bullet or whether it is somebody who is an organised thief or involved in the internal conflict in East Timor who has a knife or a rifle with which to attack an Australian soldier; they have the same effect. What is more, it does not matter whether or not a soldier is actually shot. The fact is that they are living in an environment where that is a real possibility. We have seen on the nightly news regular footage of people in East Timor firing weapons. We have seen houses burnt. We have seen people killed. That is the environment in which Australian troops are operating. Why have we got Australian troops there and not plain-clothed or uniformed police? Because it is a warlike environment. There is massive civil unrest in East Timor. It is bordering on a civil war.

I am not trying to dramatise the situation in East Timor and make it sound worse than it is, but the simple fact is: people have died, and there have been not just small arm weapons but grenades used in the conflict in the last month. We have sent our Australian soldiers into harm’s way to bring order to that place. The Prime Minister knew that and quite properly alerted the Australian people to the likelihood or possibility that Australian lives could be lost. Now, to my amazement, the government, in a penny-pinching exercise, is saying after the event: ‘Well, they’re not on warlike service.’ The government has got that wrong, and it should get it right. The government should, without any further delay, reverse its position in relation to the remuneration of the Australian troops in East Timor and make sure that they are provided with the same recompense as they would be if they were in a warlike environment, because they are under the same threat of injury or death as they would be if they were in one of many other places that have been classified that way.

It is not just Australian soldiers or defence personnel who we have sent to East Timor; we also have members of the Australian Federal Police there. A lot of the work that needs to be done in East Timor is policing, and Australian police are increasingly undertaking these roles. They have a long history of doing these things in hot spots around the world—in the Middle East and Europe. There are a number of deployments that Federal Police have been involved in over decades. Of course, more recently they have been involved in deployments closer to home, in the Pacific. As with our defence personnel, I am deeply concerned that the government has despatched these people without adequate support. I encourage the minister to provide details to the parliament about the support that has been provided to the Federal Police.

We know that when the Federal Police were sent to the Solomon Islands they were not properly equipped. When the riots occurred in the Solomon Islands the Federal Police were required to deal with them without helmets. The government did not actually send sufficient riot helmets for every officer. Why, I do not know. It was not actually a cost restriction; it just seems to me to be one of those bungles. There were not enough helmets and shields for each of the Federal Police officers sent to the Solomon Islands to protect themselves with. As a result of that, Federal Police in the Solomon Islands were injured. I know for a fact one of those Federal Police officers sustained serious head injuries and had to be evacuated from the Solomon Islands back to Australia because the government had not provided him with a helmet.

I hope this time, in East Timor, they do not make the same mistake. I hope this time there is sufficient protective equipment for all of our Federal Police personnel who have been sent to East Timor so that, if they unhappily find themselves in a similar situation, we will not find injuries or deaths of Australian personnel caused by a lack of support from this government. I invite the minister at some point to make a clear, unequivocal statement to the parliament about the support that has been provided to the AFP, which I hope is better in East Timor than it was in the Solomon Islands.

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