Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The pressing need for Australia to confirm a date for the safe return of Australian troops from Afghanistan.

This is an important motion, which comes after the most recent news of the terrible further loss of three good and true Australians in the service of their nation in Afghanistan. We have had the condolence motion for Captain Bryce Duffy, Corporal Ashley Birt and Lance Corporal Luke Gavin today. I want to add the condolences of the Australian Greens to the loved ones, the families, the friends, the associates, the Defence Force personnel who knew these brave Australians, and their communities. It is a horrendous loss under extraordinary circumstances which cannot be described as anything other than murder. These losses come on top of the deaths of 29 other Australians and a mounting injury toll, which for this year alone stands at 44. The total physical injury toll is in excess of 200 Australian personnel since the nation became involved in October 2001.

The point of this motion is to give the community of Australia, particularly the community of service personnel in Afghanistan, some security about the intentions of government. We read in the media an Australian declaration that, while there is a general intention of withdrawing troops by 2014, based on America's declared timetable, we will be heavily involved in Afghanistan long after that. That includes the involvement of special services troops and training personnel. By dint of logic, those training personnel will be continuing in quite dangerous circumstances beyond 2014.

The Greens have brought forward this motion on the commitment of Australian troops to the longest war in which we have been engaged in the history of the Commonwealth in a parliament that has held the least debate of our involvement in a war in that history of more than a century. In deploying Australians to positions of great danger in the service of the nation overseas, it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to track the safety, security and progress of those service personnel all the way. I think this parliament has failed to do that. As a result of a commitment made by the Prime Minister in forming office last year, which was part of the arrangement with the Greens, we did have a parliamentary debate for the first time in a decade of involvement in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister has committed to that becoming an annual feature. We Greens believe that debate ought not be just annual but should be ongoing. What we see in Afghanistan is an escalating loss of Australian lives. It is important that we reiterate through parliamentary debate what it is that motivates our nation to continue to put our service personnel in growing danger in Afghanistan and what it is that we intend to achieve by continuing to put them in that grave danger overseas. I cannot put it better than Hugh White, commentator on defence matters, Professor of Strategic Studies at ANU and a visiting fellow of the Lowy Institute, who in an article in the Age on 12 July this year said:

June 2010 was an especially bad month, so let's exclude the six deaths that month from the calculation as an aberration. That leaves 12 soldiers lost in 12 months. One a month.

How many more months? The Australian government is coy about this, but Barack Obama isn't. He has said US forces will be out of the fighting by the end of 2014, and we can be pretty sure that ours will leave with them. That's about 42 months.

So on these trends, if nothing changes, we should expect that an additional 42 young Australians will be dead by the time we pull out of Oruzgan. If we could change our operational pattern and return to the casualty rates of 2006-09, 30 of them would still be alive.

He went on to say:

This debate has to start with a sober assessment of what we could possibly achieve in Afghanistan from now on. Even if we concede (which I doubt) that what happens there matters much to Australia, what are the chances of making a difference in Afghanistan from here on?

Nothing our forces do in Oruzgan will make any difference unless the wider coalition effort can achieve big improvements in the country. But that is not going to happen. It is clear the coalition operations are winding down.

Here is the question for every member of this parliament to address: are we willing to see a loss of lives, conservatively estimated at 40-plus—on current trends it will be higher than that—of good and true young Australian Defence Force personnel when there is no articulated goal to achieve by 2014 that would dramatically alter the circumstances of Afghanis that is effectively not being achieved now? One thing we may argue is the ability of the Afghan National Army to be able in some way to control the country better than it can do now. The events of the past few days show what a hazardous proposal that is to enjoin with any degree of certainty.

This is a grave and real matter for our parliament to consider. It is my opinion that this parliament is remiss in not having debated this all the way down the line. There is no good moment in which to debate this, but this debate was brought on by the Australian Greens with real and heartfelt concern, which I know is shared by members of parliament right across the spectrum. We need to put some of the duty back onto our shoulders, to have a parliamentary debate on whether or not we should effectively be asking scores more Australians to sacrifice their lives and their families and loved ones to accept that loss. If we are going to ask for that sacrifice to be given, we need to be able to state exactly what goal that sacrifice is to achieve. My belief and the belief of the Greens is that, in putting forward this motion which Senator Siewert has brought forward, this parliament cannot cogently argue that this sacrifice should be made. Therefore, our troops should be withdrawn safely to these Australian shores.