Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Hansard source

It is unfortunate that the minister has not been present until now and that he has brought with him his own professional filibusterer, the member for Ryan, to consume opposition time.

On the question of East Timor, Madam Deputy Speaker Bishop, the matter we were discussing before you came into the chamber to assume the chair was the appropriate function being performed by a peacekeeping force under the United Nations flag and whether in fact that had any broader function than policing the border. I think it is fair to say that the minister characterised as ‘muddle-headed’ a view which suggested that this sort of peacekeeping force had any function in the broader security of East Timor itself other than policing the border. I think that is a fair characterisation of the minister’s position.

That being the case, it would make entirely muddle-headed the government’s current deployment because that is exactly what the government is now doing. The current force, in being on the ground in East Timor, is precisely dealing with how to resolve tensions arising from a failure in the East Timorese political process—tensions which have a capacity to spill over into the fragmented nature of the East Timorese defence force on the one hand and the East Timorese police force on the other. So if it was muddle-headed—this is a question for the minister to reflect upon and I would appreciate his answer to it—to ever have a view that the peacekeeping force prior to 2005 had such a function then presumably it is muddle-headed, in the minister’s argument, for them to be performing any function like that now. Of course, the reality is that, when we are dealing with complex matters on the ground in East Timor, there are a range of impacts which security presences on the ground perform, one of which is to provide broader stabilisation and the other to provide a confident environment in which the political process can operate.

The first question I would appreciate the minister considering in response to this intervention on East Timor is: again in that period 2002 to 2005, did the minister, in making decisions about the draw-down of Australia’s military presence under successive UN security council resolutions, receive any advice from his department, or did the government receive advice more broadly, as to any consequences which would flow in terms of East Timor’s internal security? The second question it would be useful for the minister to reflect upon is: did the government receive any advice, given its responsibility for the training, primarily, of the East Timorese defence force, as to whether that defence force could effectively operate and manage any tensions within its own ranks once Australia withdrew from the field altogether? These are live considerations. The third question I would like the minister to address is this: in considering this draw-down of Australia’s military commitment to Timor between 2002 and 2005 and, furthermore, the consequences, effective or otherwise, of our training of the East Timorese defence force over that period of time, did the minister also receive advice in terms of Australia’s other military needs?

It needs to be registered—and I would ask the minister to reflect on this in his response—whether Australia’s military requirements in Iraq and in Afghanistan at this time had a direct bearing on the government’s decision to cut and run from East Timor at this time. It is quite plain that the intense commitments arising from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 were of significant moment within the ADF and the resources available for deployment. Furthermore, when Australia had initially cut and run from Afghanistan at the end of 2002 and then recommitted, after pressure from all sorts of quarters, a year or so later back to Afghanistan, was that also a material factor in the government’s consideration of how to sustain a military commitment to East Timor during that period of time? We all know that there are constraints on the defence budget. Therefore, I would appreciate the minister answering whether, over that critical three-year period which saw the successive drawn-down of Australia’s military commitment, he was in receipt of any advice or recommendation from the government as to where Australia’s military resources were better deployed vis-a-vis Iraq and Afghanistan. (Time expired)

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