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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, will you inform the House about President Obama's announcement today on Afghanistan?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Melbourne Ports for his question. It is a good thing Brendan Nelson is in the gallery, given the work he did with me when we attended the NATO summit at the end of last year. As Australians would have seen today, President Obama has made an important ann­ouncement about the international effort in Afghanistan. To use President Obama's words as he talked about the clear progress that is being made in Afghanistan, 'We are now working from a position of strength.' Those were President Obama's words. His message was that the transition strategy is on track towards achieving the goal set by President Karzai in Afghanistan that the Afghan state be able to assume responsibility for its own security by the end of 2014.

Australia shares President Obama's assessment that progress is being made and that the transition strategy is on track. As I have had cause in the past to report to the House, we believe that we have reversed the momentum of the insurgency that our troops face. We are training Afghan security forces and they are becoming more capable and more able to operate on their own. We have hit al-Qaeda hard. President Obama talked today about the hardest hit of all with the death of bin Laden. And we are helping the Afghan authorities to improve the lives of the people of Afghanistan.

I understand that many Australians today will have listened to President Obama's words, particularly his words about drawing down American troops in Afghanistan. They may be thinking to themselves, 'If President Obama is drawing down troops, what does that mean for Australia and what does that mean for our mission?' I think it is very important we get a sense of scale and context here. The Americans put in 30,000 additional troops in a surge to take their troop involvement to around 100,000. We have around 1,500 troops involved in Afghanistan. President Obama outlined a draw-down strategy for the troops involved in the surge. Then he charted the course forward on transition. He has said that he is looking for a draw down, and one will occur by the end of this year and then continue throughout 2012. Then he is looking beyond transition in 2014 to what he refers to as an enduring part­nership as the international community continues to support the Afghan government. To those who may be concerned that America is drawing down, I say to them that the context is of far higher troop involvement and the quite rapid surge, with the draw down now to come.

The advice that I have had from the Chief of the Defence Force as recently as this morning is that our current troop presence remains appropriate for our mission. I am also advised that we do not expect that there will be any significant implications for the US-Australian joint efforts in Oruzgan from the draw down of the surge. We are on course in Afghanistan. It is hard work. It is dangerous work. It is work that on too many occasions has required us to mark moments of condolence in the House. But we are on course and we will be staying that course. With President Obama's statement today we have a further insight into his thinking and the strategy ahead as Afghanistan begins to transition to local security leadership.