Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Isaacs for the question. I know that, like many new members to this place, he will be making a substantial contribution to the debate in Australia. In opposition, the Labor Party supported the intervention in Afghanistan. We did so because we wanted to ensure that the mission, so important to Australia’s national security, enjoyed broad public support. The new government continues to support the Afghanistan project. The international community cannot afford to sit back and allow a failed state to remain a breeding ground for terrorists prepared to kill innocent people en masse in the name of their extremist beliefs. I described the war in Afghanistan as a project, and I did so quite deliberately. I did so because the work of the international community there necessarily goes well beyond the military action—consolidating new democratic health and educational institutions, building economic capacity absent of narcotics and developing Afghanistan’s security forces to the point where the government can independently enforce the rule of law or require coherent and coordinated plans which marry all military and non-military strategies.

Unfortunately, such coordinated and coherent plans have been the absent part of the Afghanistan jigsaw. Indeed, the highly respected Lord Paddy Ashdown said only today that the absence of an agreed national strategy meant that in Afghanistan ‘defeat is now a real possibility’. What a tragedy failure in Afghanistan would be for all of those who have given their lives for the cause or have been badly injured. What an ominous development it would be for global security and for the Afghan people. What a tragedy it would be if all the good work done so far in the end were to count for nought.

There have been significant gains. Economic growth in the war-weary country is currently running at an impressive eight per cent. Health care in Afghanistan also continues to improve. Indeed, 80 per cent of the Afghani people now have access to basic health care services. Infant mortality rates continue to steadily decline. The number of Afghan children receiving an education now exceeds some six million. Importantly, a number of those, some two million people, are girls. The outcomes flowing from Australia’s military role have been significant and substantial. The work of our Special Forces, our infantry, our cavalry and other elements are very highly regarded by our partners. Our Defence Force engineers, tradespeople and project managers are rebuilding local infrastructure. They have helped construct schools and bridges. Amongst those schools is an important trade-training school. What a tragedy it would be if this were all for nil.

Unsurprisingly, the future of the Afghanistan project was an early priority for me when I was appointed the Minister for Defence. Alarmingly, early in the course of my work I found a lack of common objectives amongst the partners—no coherent strategy; confused chains of command and blurred lines of responsibility; a failing counternarcotics strategy; the absence of benchmarks for progress; a crisis in burden sharing, with a number of NATO countries failing to meet or live up to their side of the bargain; and poor progress in advancing Afghan security forces towards the critical mass in skill required for them to be able to hold our military gains. But what surprised me most was the extent to which Australia had been denied access to important war information and excluded from the strategic-planning processes. Our people have been going to war, some to make the ultimate sacrifice, but it seems their political masters have been happy to sit on the sidelines.

See this speech in context