Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to compliment the member for Page for her ongoing commitment and dedication to the people of East Timor. I am pleased to rise to speak about Australia’s involvement in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. From the outset I pay tribute to the outstanding performance of our young men and women in the Australian Defence Forces who over the past nine years have proven their dedication and commitment to the mission and have made our country exceptionally proud in doing so. I also acknowledge the sacrifice of the 20 young men who have given their lives in this conflict in the pursuit of bringing peace and security to all Australians. We will never be able to completely repay the debt we owe to these brave men and their families and friends at home.

But it is not the outstanding performance of our Defence Force—for that is surely without question—that has brought this debate to the floor of the House of Representatives. The Australian people deserve to hear from this government what the mission in Afghanistan will entail from this point onwards and what this mission means to our national security. So, why are we in Afghanistan, and what is our mission? While the fall of the Berlin Wall may seem a lifetime ago, the first decade of the 21st century is seared into our consciousness. The dreadful and tragic events of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington DC in 2001 by the al-Qaeda-trained Islamic terrorists were stark illustrations to the world that failed states such as Afghanistan were havens of state-sponsored Islamic terrorism.

In 1996, Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan. Upon the Taliban’s seizing of power, bin Laden forged an alliance between the Taliban and his organisation, al-Qaeda. It has been suggested that the Taliban and bin Laden had very close connections and that al-Qaeda-trained fighters known as the 055 Brigade were incorporated into the Taliban army between 1997 and 2001. Although none of us will be able to erase the events of that day from our memories, it is important to outline that the state-sponsored Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan was essential to the success of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The September 11 attacks against the United States were coordinated by al-Qaeda and involved 19 al-Qaeda-trained Islamic terrorists who hijacked four commercial passenger jets, which were subsequently and deliberately crashed into major state buildings.

Nearly 3,000 victims, along with the 19 terrorists, died in the attacks. According to the New York State Department of Health, 836 responders, including firefighters and police personnel, died responding to the attacks. Among the 2,752 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefighters and 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority. An additional 184 people were killed in the attack on the Pentagon. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of 77 countries. Fifteen Australians were killed in the September 11 attacks.

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11 galvanised the world, including Australia, into supporting military action to bring an end to state-sponsored terrorism in Afghanistan. In response to the heinous atrocity of the September 11 attacks and the recalcitrance of the Taliban in refusing to extradite bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership to the United States for prosecution, President Bush announced on 7 October 2001, under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom, that combat operations against Afghanistan and the Taliban would commence. The initial military objectives of Operation Enduring Freedom can be broadly outlined as the destruction of terrorist training camps and infrastructure within Afghanistan, the capture of al-Qaeda leaders and the cessation of terrorist activities in Afghanistan.

The United States cited article 51of the UN Charter as the legal justification for the invasion of Afghanistan. Article 51 states:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

The legal criteria for the initiation of the war under the UN Charter were comprehensively—and, it must be said, tragically—met. On 5 October 2001 member states of NATO invoked article 5 of the Washington treaty, which states that an armed attack on one or more of the allies in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.

The International Security Assistance Force is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation led security mission in Afghanistan, established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 by resolution 1386. ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul and the surrounding area from the Taliban, al-Qaeda and factional warlords to allow for the establishment of the Afghan transitional administration, headed by President Hamid Karzai. ISAF comprises 47 nations, including Australia, and there are now almost 120,000 ISAF personnel in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks Australia, under the coalition government, stood shoulder to shoulder with our American cousins. On 17 September 2001, Prime Minister John Howard announced to the parliament that the then government, of which I was a proud member, would be involved in invoking the ANZUS treaty and pledging military and other assistance to the global effort to stamp out state-sponsored terrorism. The invocation of the ANZUS treaty by Prime Minister Howard had bipartisan support in the parliament. This was the first time the treaty’s clauses on acting to meet a common danger had been invoked since the treaty was enacted in 1952. On 4 October 2001 the government directed the Chief of the Defence Force to have a range of military assets, including special forces, available to support the US under the ANZUS treaty.

Our forces in Afghanistan are doing a remarkable job in difficult and dangerous circumstances. But in the finest military tradition of the Anzacs, our troops are performing magnificently despite the inhospitable terrain of a country that has defeated armies stretching back to Alexander the Great. Our Special Operations team strikes fear into Taliban to the point where the enemy will break contact or manoeuvre rather than face our ghosts at night.

Our troops are fighting side-by-side with Afghan National Army forces as part of the remote operational mentoring and liaison teams. These deployments illustrate the success of the mission in Afghanistan that has been implemented since February 2008 as part of the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force. The current Labor government altered this mission to commence mentoring and training the Afghan National Army and police whilst continuing reconstruction and population protection.

On 21 October 2008, the defence minister issued a press release that outlined the revised mission in Afghanistan. It stated:

“The handover marks a new chapter for the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan, with a new focus on building the capacity of the Afghan National Army in Oruzgan Province,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.

“It forms part of Australia’s coordinated approach in Oruzgan Province of disrupting extremists, building infrastructure and increasing the capacity of the Afghan Army.

However, the government’s message remained confused. The PM, in his National Security Statement of 4 December 2008, stated:

In Afghanistan, our objective is to reduce the spread of terrorism by helping Afghanistan build a more peaceful and stable state and so reduce the risk of that country once again becoming a safe haven and a training base for terrorist organisations with global reach.

In reality, the government has moved almost exclusively to training and mentoring the Afghan National Army. Therefore, it was a relief to gain clarity from the Chief of Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Houston, who reiterated, during a 13 September 2010 media roundtable, Australia’s objectives in Afghanistan. He stated:

Australia has clearly defined goals in Afghanistan. To deny sanctuary to terrorists; to stabilise Afghanistan; and to train the Afghan National Army 4^th Brigade in Uruzgan to protect the key population centres in the province and ultimately hand over security responsibility to the Afghans themselves.

Therefore, in addition to reconstruction efforts in Oruzgan province, MRTF-1’s role also included capacity-building and mentoring of the Afghan National Army.

Australia is leading the way in training and promoting the development of the Afghan people in determining their own destiny. The mentoring of the Afghan National Army 4th Brigade has now become the primary focus of our engagement in Afghanistan. Mentoring the 4th Brigade has its challenges, but is gradually reaping rewards. The 4th Brigade being capable of controlling Oruzgan is the key to enabling our troops to be withdrawn so that the Afghans can control their own destiny in a safe and secure place where the people can live without fear of reprisals from the Taliban and other criminal elements.

There is still room for the Karzai government to improve its levels of governance beyond the major cities, to the regional areas where the Taliban still have considerable influence and are seen as the alternative government. Coupled with this is the need for the Karzai administration to rid the country of the endemic levels of corruption at all levels of government. Indeed, we are paying $250 million towards getting that contingent to a capacity and capability that will ensure long-term security for the people of that country.

We are there for the duration, until the job is done. The coalition supports the continuing deployment of Australian forces in Afghanistan, as such action focuses on defeating the threat of terrorism at its source. Afghanistan has long been a training ground for terrorists, including those who perpetrated the attacks in Bali and Jakarta and against our embassy in Indonesia.

Over the past decade, 111 Australians have been killed by terrorist attacks that were planned and executed from terrorist safe havens in the mountains of Afghanistan: 12 October 2002, Kuta, Bali, 88 Australians killed; 9 September 2004, Australian Embassy, Jakarta, nine Indonesians killed and 150-plus injured; 7 July 2005, London, train and bus bombings, one Australian killed and 11 injured; 1 October 2005, Jimbaran Beach, Kuta, Bali, four Australians killed and 19 injured; 17 July 2009, Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, Jakarta, three Australians killed. The terrorist threat to Australia is very real. It was the simultaneous presence at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan of militants from across South-East Asia that facilitated many of the personal relationships that exist between Jemaah Islamiah and members of other violent Islamist groups.

The mission in Afghanistan is critical to Australia’s national security interests. However, in this parliamentary debate we have heard from some elements on the fringe of the political spectrum that believe Australia’s interests lie in withdrawing Australian troops before our mission is complete. These elements, particularly the Greens party, have spent nearly as much time denigrating the war in Afghanistan and our alliance with the United States as they have in wilfully choosing to neglect the broad strategic, political, security and moral imperatives that have led to Australia’s United Nations sanctioned participation in this conflict, and the imperatives for us to remain until our mission is complete.

The coalition supports a strategy that, in the first instance, denies Afghanistan as a training ground and operations base for al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations. Secondly, we support the stabilisation of the Afghan state through the combination of civil, police and military training for local Afghans, to enable them to achieve self-determination within a reasonable period of time. It will more than likely be a protracted engagement that will require long-term efforts to reconstruct the social fabric of that country.

Within the context of framing the debate, we need to focus on the Greens’ foreign and security policy, which respected journalist Paul Kelly recently described as:

… a world view, documented point by point, stunning in its isolationist utopian pacifist philosophy, unsuitable for the responsibility of nationhood. Long ignored, it needs to see sunlight.

The Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, has publicly called for Australia to abandon our mission in Afghanistan—this coming from the leader of a minor political party who has not visited our troops in the field to see the conditions and the positive impact our presence is having. Nor have the Greens and their leadership sought a briefing from the government on the mission. When it comes to national security, the Greens appear more concerned with appealing to the inner-city intellectual left than with availing themselves of the facts of our mission in Afghanistan.

Our mission in Afghanistan is critical to Australia’s national security interests today and will be in the future. Our troops deserve to have a clearly defined mission, and Afghanistan deserves a chance to become a self-sufficient nation state without being subjugated by an extremist ideology.

(Extension of time granted) I thank the members of this House for their indulgence in granting me an extension of time. It gives me the opportunity to talk about the significant contributions made by members from all sides of the parliament in this debate. From time to time in such debates people like me take the opportunity to remind the community about some elements within the Australian parliament who have different views from the majority of members in the House, but I have to say that the speakers have all had one thing in common: their care and concern for their fellow Australians overseas. I hope that that care and concern is resonating from the parliament to the mainstream community concerning the wonderful contribution these young men and women are making for their government on behalf of the Australian people. These young people do not wish to go. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, they are directed to go there through the Australian Defence Force processes.

The very difficult situation that our young men and women in armed conflict find themselves in regarding the rules of engagement, and the problems associated with three of our well-trained Defence Force personnel from our commando brigades being charged, has also been raised in this place. Whilst their situation is the subject of an inquiry within the ADF, I know I speak on behalf of all of my parliamentary colleagues here, and certainly on behalf of my constituents and all fair-minded Australians, in saying that every possible legal assistance should be given to these fine young men. While we do not know the full details of the circumstances centred around the charges that have been laid against them, we do know that they were doing their duty on behalf of their nation and that they were doing it in the tradition of the duty that all young men and women who have gone into conflict on behalf of their country have carried out on behalf of this country for decades.

I want the community to know that I can confidently say on behalf of all of the members of parliament here that we have the best interests of those young men at heart and that we wish them well. We trust that the process—a process that was introduced because of some changes to particular UN charters some time back—turns out to be fair and equitable in terms of justice. We hope that it does not go down the path of the trial of Breaker Morant many, many years ago. That was a travesty of justice because it was driven by people within the British system of military justice and history has shown that the way it was handled was very, very bad.

But I am confident because as Australians we, whilst perhaps a little roguish in the way in which we carry on individually, are fair people when it comes to the crunch. I trust that that fairness, concern and compassion for our fellow Australians comes to the fore when these young well-trained epitomes of Australia’s finest come to trial. I hope that the outcome is such that the Australian people will have significant confidence in the ability of the ADF to protect their own when the time arises.

I thank the parliament for the opportunity to participate in this debate and, more specifically, I once again thank my parliamentary colleagues on both sides of the House for allowing me the opportunity to say a few more words about the men and women whom we love and care for in our Defence Force.

Debate (on motion by Mr Forrest) adjourned.

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