House debates
Tuesday, 31 August 2021
Adjournment
Afghanistan
7:46 pm
Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
[by video link] Afghanistan really didn't need to end this way. It was simply not preordained that Afghanistan would fall back into the clutches of the Taliban. It was not preordained that we would see scenes, particularly over this last week or so, reminiscent of the evacuation of US forces from Saigon.
Yes, I'm the first to make the case that the military operation against Afghanistan in 2001 was warranted. Clearly, we needed to respond to the shocking al-Qaeda attacks in the United States. And, clearly, al-Qaeda was so interwoven with the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 that to remove al-Qaeda we needed to remove the Taliban regime. I don't dispute any of that. But what was required back then was a short, sharp military action, backed up by the strongest possible Western support and investment in nation rebuilding. But of course what happened, as early as the year after 2001—2002—was that the US and the UK in particular were pulling their troops out of Afghanistan to get ready to go and 'do' Iraq, if I can use that term. In fact, by 2004 there were some 100,000 US soldiers in Iraq and only about 15,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. In other words, where we are today was failure by design. In other words, the architects of that withdrawal or thinning out, and the distraction of the terrible Iraq war, were President George W Bush, Prime Minister Tony Blair and our own Prime Minister, John Howard.
But we are now where we are, and the question is: how do we help clean up the mess that we helped to create? Of course, there was much effort by the Australian Defence Force, and the British, US and other military, to get as many people out as they could in recent days. But of course so many people who are at grave risk are still in Afghanistan and somehow still need to get out of that country to safety. Somehow we have to have a channel of communication with the new regime, as does the United States, the UK and, ideally, the UNHCR. We need some sort of channel of communication to try to work with the new regime, to allow people at risk to get out of that country.
Of course that will amount to nothing unless fortunate countries like our own greatly increase their humanitarian intakes to allow those people somewhere to go and not just be stuck in countries of first asylum, like Pakistan or Iran. I note that the Australian government has announced an initial allocation of 3,000 in our humanitarian intake, and I note that the Prime Minister has signalled this won't be the end of it. But let's stop the uncertainty; let's get out there with big numbers. The US and the UK are talking about tens of thousands as a sure thing. Why don't we end the uncertainty and announce that, over the next year or so, we too will take tens of thousands of wonderful people from Afghanistan? There are doctors, engineers, nurses, social workers, poets, artists and all sorts of people there at risk. Let them come to Australia. Let them make our country all the richer.
At the same time, we need to acknowledge that a lot of Afghans will be fleeing across land to find some sort of safety in neighbouring countries, countries of first asylum—like I said, Pakistan and Iran. We really need to help those countries host those people, at least temporarily. We need to send humanitarian aid to Pakistan and Iran. We need to very quickly give certainty to Afghans in Australia. Give them permanent residency.
We also need to use the episodes of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan as a prompt to revisit the whole issue of war powers. I asked a question of the Prime Minister on this the other day and he batted it away. He can't keep batting it away. We need the parliament to be more involved in the future in decisions of war and peace —not in emergency situations but when there's time to really think about an impending conflict, as was the case with Afghanistan, which was a matter of months ; and a s was the case with Iraq, which was almost a matter of years.
In closing, Speaker — and I thank your forbearance with the technology I've battled through down here in Hobart in recent times, but I'm online now — I make this point: we helped to make that mess. We need to do everything in our power to help clean it up.
12:00 am
Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
[by video link] As we approach the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan, I'd like to start first by acknowledging all those who lost their lives and lost their loved ones : our troops, innocent Afghans and victims of terrorism. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating rapidly every single day. I was most distressed to hear that the sister and brother-in-law of one of my constituents were murdered recently by the Taliban. His brother-in-law was a subcontractor for the Australian Army working with our country and our troops in Afghanistan. They have three teenage children who are now orphaned in Afghanistan. They have no remaining relatives in Afghanistan, and the Taliban is hunting down those orphans as well. It is just disgraceful that we are leaving behind those Afghans who worked with us.
On 20 September 2018—that's almost three years ago—the member for Maribyrnong, who was then the Leader of the Opposition, asked a question in question time. He asked the then Minister for Home Affairs why our veterans had been trying for three years to secure visas for Afghan interpreters who had helped them in Afghanistan , and why it was so much easier for the minister to grant visas to au pairs but not to those who had helped our troops. Three years on and that question remains unanswered.
I would also like to acknowledge my staff , staff from other offices and shadow ministers. It has been emotionally and mentally draining for them. My office has escalated close to 1,000 cases for emergency evacuation from Afghanistan. We provide assistance to anyone who needs it. One thousand cases is one-third of the government's emergency intake from Afghanistan—from this office alone. Three thousand people simply isn't adequate to address the dire situation in Afghanistan. I have absolutely no faith in anything that the Taliban says about granting any sorts of rights to anyone in Afghanistan, particularly women and children, and I have grave concerns for the wellbeing of women and children in Afghanistan.
We have a large Afghan-Australian community in Cowan, and so it perhaps makes sense that my office has been so flooded with calls for help from members of the community here. However, dozens of those cases are coming from outside of my electorate. It concerns me that many of those people report that they have contacted their Liberal members of parliament and were turned away, not given any form of assistance. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that we're all here for the right reasons. Regardless of where we sit on the political divide, we represent all the people in our electorate, regardless of where they sit on the political divide, regardless of their personal circumstances, regardless of their beliefs or their status. I simply cannot abide members who turn away desperate people and refuse to help them, especially when it is a case of life or death.
Australia must do more. People in Afghanistan put their lives at risk to help our troops in the belief that, in doing so, they would be assisting their own country and their own nation-building. We made many mistakes in Afghanistan, and I've spoken before about the mistake of treating the incursion in Afghanistan as traditional warfare and why we needed to treat it differently. But we are in this situation now, 20 years on. Twenty years on, women in Afghanistan are facing some dire consequences. We cannot leave them behind. I urge the government to consider increasing the intake of refugees from Afghanistan. Those who are here have made an incredible contribution to Australia, and I have all faith that all the Afghan refugees that we take will continue to make an incredible contribution to Australia. They are hardworking people. I have witnessed this myself. I know them. I know them as family friends, I know them as members of the community, I know them as constituents of Cowan and as constituents of other electorates here. I also urge government members: please do not turn your back on those people who are asking you for help, who are coming to your offices and seeking assistance. Please do everything that we can to help these people.