Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I arrive at this place after a great deal of confusion, but I am here nonetheless, to speak on something that is very important and to follow the Prime Minister in her very serious report to the parliament on Afghanistan and in keeping the pledge to the Australian people that we would continue to do that. Julia Gillard said yesterday that we will complete our mission of training and transition. She is right to reaffirm Australia's role in rebuilding Afghanistan and outline the fact that our role in training the Afghan 4th Brigade is going well.

I am not sure whether people picked up the significance of her forecast that the training of the Afghan 4th Kandak, or Brigade, may be completed before 2014. She made reference to the despicable and cowardly attacks on the Australian trainers by rogue elements of the Afghan National Army. We had the very peculiar reference by the local Brigadier General Mohammed Zafar Khan, saying that he would be happy for the Australian troops to leave immediately. It is something that I believe the Afghan government has cleared up, but I believe it is more related to a desire to have access to all the equipment that the Australians would leave, allegedly, to him if they were to depart immediately.

The purpose of this effort, as the Prime Minister outlined, is to see that Afghanistan is not re-established as a base for terrorists and to give evidence of our close alliance with the United States. Our recent VC recipient, Corporal Roberts-Smith, memorably described a counterterrorist mission on AM some weeks ago. He said:

I believe that we—

that is, the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan on Australia's behalf—

are making a difference in stemming the flow of terrorism into Australia, and I want my children to be able to live as everyone does now without fear of getting onto a bus and having it blow up.

That is a corporal in the Australian Army speaking on national radio with such a clear understanding of the mission.

Our role in counterinsurgency in training the Afghan 4th Kandak is obviously dangerous. We lost those three young fellows who were machine-gunned while they were at the end of a parade. They were helping the Afghan security services. The training is going well, as the Prime Minister suggested—and the Australian Army does too. We have been able to hand over 11 patrol and forward bases to the Afghan army. The Prime Minister said there should be no safe haven for terrorists in Afghanistan. The operations undertaken in Oruzgan and the southern province of Kandahar are enormously important for the battle against the Taliban. Earlier this year Australian and Afghan troops removed vast quantities of explosives—a topic I will return to in a minute—including an insurgents' cache of over 400 kilograms of explosives and 22 ready-to-use IEDs that were discovered. The Australian people do not want to continue sacrificing our blood and treasure in Afghanistan forever, but it is due to the sustained heroism of our soldiers that we have been able to fulfil this important political task. As the Prime Minister said, we will probably continue to have counterinsurgency special forces there even after the, hopefully, early withdrawal when the 4th Kandak can be stood up and left alone to control Oruzgan province.

Our work in Afghanistan is not the only role we are playing in the region. The Prime Minister mentioned we cooperate with Pakistan in counterterrorism, but Pakistan must do more to counter and fight terrorism within itself, on its border with Afghanistan and in Afghanistan. Every serious person concerned with national security would have been flabbergasted at the famous denunciation of Pakistan by Admiral Mike Mullen, the retiring head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said that the Haqqani network, which is one of the terrorist networks, acts as 'a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency'. Worse is the evidence I have seen, which can only have come from the highest sources and which I urge every serious member of this parliament to read, in the December issue of Atlantic Monthly which outlines the rationale behind Admiral Mullen's remarks. The article said:

The September 13 raid on the American Embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul—in which Haqqani insurgents besieged the compound with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, killing at least 16 people—had shocked the Joint Chiefs. … the American Ambassador in Afghanistan, "had to spend 18 hours in a bunker to keep himself alive," this source said. "Imagine what would have happened if he had been killed."

This is by a terrorist group run by Pakistan, and I say that with full seriousness. This is an ally of the United States and Australia, a country which gets $2 billion of American taxpayers' money and $119 million of ours. The leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba live openly in Pakistan. It is outrageous that Pakistan allows explosive factories in Lahore to be the major source of the explosives in improvised explosive devices. Let me repeat that: Pakistan, a country which receives $119 million of Australian foreign aid, provides explosives from its factories to kill Australians and Americans. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, it is in the interests of Afghanistan, Australia and our coalition partners to have Pakistan counter terrorists in the region. That is very much the case because, as the article in the Atlantic Monthly says:

Most of the world … is very anxious about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and for good reason: Pakistan is an unstable and violent country located at the epicenter of global jihadism and it has been the foremost supplier of nuclear technology to such rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. It is perfectly sensible to believe that Pakistan may not be the safest place on Earth—

that is a nice bit of understatement—

to warehouse 100 or more nuclear weapons. These weapons are stored on bases and in facilities spread across the country (possibly including one within several miles of Abbottabad, a city that, in addition to having hosted Osama bin Laden, is the home to many partisans of the jihadist group Harakat-ul-Mujahideen.) Western leaders have stated that a paramount goal of their counterterrorism efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of jihadists.

If there is any place on earth where we have that as a primary concern it is in Pakistan. Since Admiral Mullen made his very judicious, strong and, I would say, very important statement, something strange has happened in Pakistan according to this extremely well-informed Atlantic Monthlyarticle:

… instead of moving nuclear material in armored, well-defended convoys—

The Pakistani military nuclear organisation—

prefers to move material by subterfuge—

To confuse the Americans—

in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic. According to both Pakistani and American sources, vans with a modest security profile are sometimes the preferred conveyance. And according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, the Pakistanis have begun using this low-security method to transfer not merely the “de-mated” component nuclear parts—

That is, the different parts that you need to put together before you can assemble them as a nuclear weapon—

but “mated” nuclear weapons.

…   …   …

What this means, in essence, is this: In a country that is home to the harshest variants of Muslim fundamentalism, and to the headquarters of the organizations that espouse these extremist ideologies, including al-Qaeda, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (which conducted the devastating terror attacks on Mumbai three years ago that killed nearly 200 civilians)—

Including two Australian civilians—

nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities are transported in delivery vans on congested and dangerous roads … In other words, the Pakistani government is willing to make nuclear weapons more vulnerable to theft by jihadists simply to hide them from the United States …

Because of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. No wonder the Prime Minister said what she did about Pakistan yesterday in the parliament. I understand that she attracted some criticism because of that from Pakistani authorities. I tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, if the rest of the parliament had read this article 'The Ally from Hell', people on both sides of the parliament would have been cheering behind her. I know the opposition is just as responsible as we are. This is a terrible indictment of the government of Pakistan. It is very worrying for any person seriously involved in national security and it is intolerable for Australia to have a group called Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been repeatedly involved in terrorist missions into Australia. I would suggest that, if you look at the five sets of people who have been arrested, charged and convicted in Australia of terrorist crimes, you would find that all of them have a Lashkar-e-Taiba training connection.

Worse than that were the two Australians who were among the 200 people tragically killed in that disgusting terrorist attack on the beautiful Indian city of Mumbai, the symbol of India's progress and commerce and modernity—something that these people who prefer to live in the sixth century obviously detest. We as Australians warmly welcome India's movement into the modern world and good relations with our country.

I conclude by saying that a withdrawal from Oruzgan province, despite the local politically rogue Afghan brigadier, would leave a security vacuum at this moment. That is not in our national interest or in the interests of our coalition partners. To the families of those who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan I say this: your sacrifices have not been for nothing. We honour them by making the ultimate sacrifice in defending democracy, human rights and the rule of law. At the tragic death of one of the boys killed in Afghanistan, Greg Sher, then defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon asked me to be in contact with his family. I have been in constant contact with his parents, Felix and Yvonne, since his passing. Having to attend the ramp ceremony with all of his mates when his body was brought off the Hercules is the worst experience I have had as a member of parliament. Some of his mates were still in their camouflage uniforms and had grown beards so that they would be less observable in situ in Afghanistan.

Australia would not be a democracy today if it were not for the service men and women who fought and continue to fight in our uniform. We pay tribute to all of those who have served and still do serve in our armed services and we pay tribute to our allies who have served with us. We thank them for their sacrifice and know that we live in a free and democratic society because of them.

As chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade I will not let up on the Pakistanis until we get to the bottom of the fact that it seems they are training people who are not only murdering Australian servicemen but are trying to penetrate Australia and become involved in terrorist activities. Their government knows where explosives factories are that have produced explosives used in IEDs that have killed Australian servicemen.

I congratulate the Prime Minister on her judicious words yesterday. Yes, we will continue the mission in Afghanistan until we can get the Afghan 4th Brigade up and standing, and then leave as soon as possible. We must also be conscious—(Time expired)

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