Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

For the benefit of the member for Sturt, as I said before, the defence minister’s statements are entirely consistent with the mission statement of the government, which is of the threefold nature that I described before. We have a mission statement. The previous government did not.

Let me return to the policy that we inherited from the previous government on Afghanistan, which was that, after 2001-02, mysteriously in 2003 the Australian Defence Force commitment reduced to zero. When I visited that country myself, I think from memory in 2004, in the company of the member for Bruce, we asked to meet with the representative of the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan at that time. We were told that he was out of the country. There was one Australian Defence Force liaison officer—am I right, member for Bruce?—

See this speech in context