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

I want to congratulate my friend the member for Bruce on his passionate exposition of the case for supporting our troops in Afghanistan, and the very serious way in which he has responded to this extra deployment, which the opposition quite responsibly supports. There were also the very serious speeches made by the members for Barton, Brisbane and Cowan. Together with them, I want to contrast the contribution by the member for Bruce against the absence of speeches from the other side. It is all very well for people to turn up to nice parades of our military and photo opportunities et cetera, but where are the speakers from the other side on this issue? There is not a single member of the government backbench to speak on deploying our troops overseas to the most dangerous deployment, at the moment, of anywhere that Australian troops are deployed to in the world. People know me in this House. I am not a person who bashes the government on national security issues when I think there is a national interest at stake. I have made that point many times. But the absence of government speakers on the Afghan deployment is a disgrace. I challenge the government to bring in some more speakers, when this debate resumes, so they too can address these issues that are of concern to the Australian people and to the great service people who are going to Afghanistan to work on our behalf.

I may resume my remarks when the members for Griffith, Chifley and Ballarat—those on our side who also want to speak—have that opportunity, but I want to look at one issue in particular raised by my esteemed friend, that greatly admired professor of public diplomacy, Professor Bill Maley, in the Sydney Morning Herald recently. Professor Maley was looking at what happened to Afghanistan and why the Kabul democracy’s prospects have declined like this. The new constitution was adopted in 2004. There was a peaceful election in October 2004. It seemed that things in Kabul were improving. Unfortunately, because of the failure of the Western countries that were so loud in their rhetoric but so negligent in their action, Afghanistan has had occur to it the kind of vacuum that the members for Bruce, Barton and Brisbane described so well. You had the Taliban reviving. You had the repeated failure of Western countries to go ahead with the commitments that they had made in the famous Berlin conference post the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the Berlin conference, let me remind the House, billions of dollars were promised for reconstruction in Afghanistan.

According to Professor Maley, a scholar who is highly trusted in this area—he is probably one of the world’s leading international experts on Afghanistan—only a fraction per capita of what Kosovo and even East Timor have received has been given to the government of Afghanistan. Maley makes an even stronger point when he says that the World Bank has criticised what is called a second civil service of UN agencies and private commercial contractors receiving rewards that are astronomical by Afghanistan standards but doing little to foster local capacity. Not enough is trickling down to the ordinary Afghans. To quote him exactly:

All this has created space for the Taliban to surge back, with active Pakistani backing.

This is also something that people who are serious in this House should look at. We had the visit of President Musharraf to this parliament. While we all support Pakistan’s involvement in the war against terrorism, it seems that the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, is involved in the resurgence of the Taliban—as it has been in the past. This is a disgrace. Given Australia’s good relations with Pakistan, we should be more active in putting that issue to the Pakistani government. Professor Maley continues:

The Afghan army is proving too expensive for the Afghans, so the security sector is subject to the vagaries of budget decisions made in foreign capitals. The police force is only a pale shadow of what is needed, and the size of the opium economy poses a real risk that Afghanistan could become a narco-state.

It is not too late to turn things around, but time is short. The Afghan Government needs to refocus on the delivery of competent, clean and inclusive governance, with particular emphasis on the delivery of security through effective community policing.

For its part, the wider world needs to ensure that its practical commitment matches its effusive rhetoric.

Too much of the “assistance” to Afghanistan has been crafted to meet short-term Western needs - for effective counterterrorism and the eradication of opium crops - without sufficient attention to what the Afghans’ long-term needs might be.

The irony is that in the long run the needs of the Afghans for social and political stability reflect the very thing it is in the long-term interest of Western powers to promote.

The first challenge for Australia, therefore, as it deploys soldiers to the danger zone of Uruzgan is to think very deeply about exactly what they are going there to do.

Of course, particularly having just been on one of the parliamentary Defence Force deployments, I now have a better understanding and feeling for the service people on active service like the ones who are going to go over there. They have acquitted themselves already with great distinction. In fact, one Australian received the highest US award ever for our role in Operation Anaconda in which Australian soldiers, the SAS in particular, were responsible for saving the lives of many Americans in a very crucial battle with the Taliban some short years ago. But we have to consider the situation of our people in this new deployment very seriously. With the time running out, I seek leave to resume my remarks later and go the full 15 minutes, if that is okay with you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I know that there are other people on this side who want to speak. As I say, through the Government Whip present here, I challenge the government to bring speakers up here and consider this very important deployment, this very dangerous deployment where we are probably going to see Australians killed. I do not like to say that, but that is something that the government should take more seriously than it is at the moment.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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