Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Herbert for bringing forward this motion today. Let me say from the outset that those Australians who were engaged in the evacuation of Afghanistan at the Kabul airport should be acknowledged and should be commended for their meritorious service. I'm sure all members remember the chaos of last August as the allied troops withdrew from Afghanistan and Kabul fell to the Taliban. Who could forget the images we saw of the airport flooded with desperate Afghans fleeing the incoming regime and the panic as we raced against the clock to help as many people as possible?

This motion is important. It reflects on the efforts of not only soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment—the Big Blue One—but also many other attachments who worked to rescue Australian passport holders and some of those loyal Afghans who supported our nation over that 20 years—some of those. They worked heroically in a desperate situation to rescue as many men, women and children as they could. They worked tirelessly to save as many lives as they could. They were brave and they were selfless.

I'd like to share with you some reflections from some soldiers on the ground of what those rushed weeks were like. One said:

It was extremely mentally fatiguing operating within that environment.

Thousands of people shouting, babies getting crushed and young people getting injured, people getting shot.

It's a little known fact that our guys were involved in a contact when a suspected vehicle-borne improvised explosive device—

or IED—

rammed the North Gate.

He goes on to say:

Our combat medics were treating multiple casualties with everything from heat illness, gunshot wounds, respiratory injuries from the non-lethal ammunition fired by coalition partners, and crush injuries to name just a few.

We also had the heartbreak of having to tell family members that although some of them qualified to come to Australia, other family members did not.

Having to explain that and watch the families say their perhaps final goodbyes to loved ones.

Some of those family members begged us to shoot them then and there rather than go back outside the gates to the Taliban.

All of this has left a big hole in our hearts and a large moral injury on the young men and women that served in Kabul.

That soldier is completely correct. It is a truth, and we need to tell truth in this place. The former government inflicted a huge moral injury on our troops when, despite months and months of warnings from the United States, they failed to plan for our withdrawal. They failed to process visas for our loyal Afghan colleagues who saved so many Australian lives at great risk to their own lives. Their inaction and incompetence is what caused those scenes as I've just described them. It is not right and it is not fair that those brave Australians from the 1st Battalion and the attachments on the ground in Afghanistan should have to bear the weight of that moral injury for failed government policy.

It cannot be understated that the decade and neglect of the LEE visa program by the former government had left many loyal interpreters who assisted our soldiers in Afghanistan stranded. It has been heartening to see that some interpreters' families have been reunited, with some of the visas coming through in the last few months. But still that took a year to occur. The Albanese government is getting on with the program, and I commend the immigration minister for his efforts. I know it's appreciated by many Australian troops who served over there in Afghanistan.

There are many challenges ahead, but, returning to the motion, I commend, in the highest terms, the actions of those who were deployed from Australia in order to facilitate the withdrawal from Afghanistan at the Kabul airport. That battalion group plus conducted themselves in an incredibly meritorious way, and I commend them for those actions. But we should not be repeating history due to the failure of the former government to do it effectively.

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