Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to debate the issue of Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan. I see it as an opportunity to publicly highlight and discuss the many complex issues surrounding our commitment, the situation we find ourselves in as a nation and the situation in which the world finds itself in dealing with issues like Afghanistan. However, while it is an opportunity to highlight and discuss, we also have to understand that we are not going to reach too many conclusions.

It is also a subject that is very hard to cover in the time that is available to an individual speaker—15 minutes, particularly if it is me speaking, can sound like forever, but the bottom line is that it is a short period of time to cover what are some manifestly complex issues. I am going to try to avoid some of the detail covered by many of the previous speakers and just focus on a few points. In doing so, I can hopefully add something relevant to the debate.

There are some points which need to be made at the outset. I do not want to descend into cliches, but they are points which I think all sides of the House agree on and which, I believe, the Australian community also agrees with. One of these points is simply the general question of support for our troops in the missions that we have given them and the undertakings that they fulfil on our behalf. The bottom line is that the Australian Defence Force is a professional and very skilled force; they are amongst the very best in the world. They go with our best wishes, with our prayers and with our hopes for their safe return. However, we know that, for some, safe return is not what has occurred and so we again express our sympathy for the families of those who have lost loved ones, for the individuals who have come back grievously wounded and for the families of those individuals. They will have to deal with that situation for the rest of their lives.

When I was a minister in the defence portfolio area, I had the duty of attending several funerals for soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan. Those occasions were very challenging for me as a minister, as a member of parliament and as a representative of the Australian community. I found it challenging to see the very open and raw grief of those who had lost a loved one in trying circumstances. I have to be honest with the House and say that one thing I will not miss, no longer being a minister in the defence portfolio area, is attending funerals of that nature. I am a typical bloke—I do not handle that sort of stuff very well. To be at those funerals and see the very open, heartfelt grief of the families is something that I found very difficult.

But in speaking to members of some of the families and in speaking to some of the men and women who have come back from Afghanistan, including at those funerals, the overwhelming view that has come through has been that the work being done in Afghanistan is working, that objectives are being met and that achievement of those objectives is making a real difference to the communities that we are seeking to assist in Afghanistan. The view that has come through very clearly from those sources is that activity needs to be maintained and that we can be confident that we are moving in the right direction.

One of the difficult things about being a politician is having to sit in judgment and it is not something I feel particularly confident about with respect to some of these issues. Despite having some knowledge from a short tenure as a minister in the defence portfolio, I do not pretend to be an expert or to have all the answers. Nor do I believe I have a clear and detailed understanding of all that is being done. However, I do feel able to raise a series of questions that I would urge the government to take on board and to consider as part of what we do as a nation in future—not only with regard to Afghanistan now but also with regard to other locations where we may end up having to put our people in harm’s way. We know from post World War II experience that we can expect there to be other locations and times we are called on to honour an alliance and other times when the international community of which we are part needs to play a role. I think we need to look at what has happened in Afghanistan to see whether that points us in some directions for dealing with those issues in the future.

As a starting point: should we be there or should we have gone in the first place? I think the answer there is: yes, it was a just cause—the circumstances after September 11 meant that action needed to be taken. There were certainly numerous attempts made to try to get the Taliban to see sense with respect to what was occurring in Afghanistan, but they fell on deaf ears. So I think the initial involvement was certainly clearly in Australia’s interests and in the world’s interests because of the nature of that regime.

Should we stay there? That goes to questions like whether we can win, what that actually means and, if we can win, how we can do it. Part of the debate that has been going on, both in the chamber and in the community, is around those sorts of questions. People are asking what is required, what victory is, how that victory can be achieved, whether it can be achieved at all and, if so, at what cost.

I think that goes to the key question: what are we seeking to do there? Others have spoken in more detail about the nature of what we are trying to achieve in those environments, the circumstances for ensuring a safe Afghanistan for the local community and the development of security mechanisms which will allow the Afghan defence forces and police to be able to secure the environment, avoiding a situation where it regresses to a base for terrorism and, hopefully, in time dealing with issues such as the enormous international problem of drug running that has many of its origins in Afghanistan.

My view is that we cannot judge Afghanistan by our own standards. What we would see as being a safe and secure environment is not going to be what we end up with in Afghanistan. What we see as being a modern society is not what we are going to see coming out of Afghanistan. The sorts of values which relate to Afghan society are very different to those of our own. However, can we see movement in the right direction? Can we see achievements that will lead to a safer location? Yes, we can—but how long will it take and what do we as a nation need to do as part of ISAF to achieve those outcomes?

I think we need to recognise that there have been mistakes made in the past. Frankly, with the benefit of hindsight, we can point out a litany of mistakes made in the original involvement in Afghanistan, in what occurred there in the aftermath of September 11 and in what has occurred since then. For a start, the fact is that we got out. We say it is a conflict which dates back to 2001. It does, but post the initial invasion there was a period of some three years where Australia’s involvement was minimal and the overall involvement of international forces was well and truly toned down from what it had been initially.

In 2004 I visited Afghanistan with the now Minister for Foreign Affairs, the member for Griffith, who was then the shadow foreign minister. At that time we had one member of the ADF in the country. We spoke to a number of senior figures in the Afghan government—President Karzai and also the foreign minister at that time, Abdullah Abdullah, who was the opposition leader in the recent election—so there were certainly different views from within Afghan society. The view that came through to us at the time was that the international forces had vacated the field before there had been a proper opportunity to build on the initial success of the invasion, and that of course was because the focus turned to Iraq. That in itself caused issues for the situation in Afghanistan. The nature of the deployment when it was ramped up around 2006 also produced problems. I now think that there is scope and reason for some optimism around what is occurring under the current leadership of General Petraeus, but again we have got to see if it works and we have got to test that.

When we look to the future and to what we are doing in this situation, often these questions come up: should we leave, when should we leave and should we set a date? I would like to make one or two points. Firstly, open-ended commitments are dangerous, but so are time lines. The problem with time lines has been mentioned by earlier speakers: they flag your intentions and set a date. But the problem with open-ended commitments is that they do not necessarily allow you to properly evaluate your progress and, if you are not, frankly, making progress, adjust what you do or re-evaluate your commitment. Our objectives need to be concrete, achievable and measurable and they need to be articulated and assessed on a regular basis. We need to make sure that we are bringing the Australian community and the international community with us when we are part of a coalition like this and we need to be in a situation where, wherever possible, we articulate very clearly how we are going and where we are going.

We also need to understand it is not just about military assets; it is also about a civilian aspect—providing support. The issue of hearts and minds is very important. We can protect hearts and minds through force of arms and we will need to do that. But the bottom line is that if we overprotect or if we are not sensitive in the context of that protection there is a danger that we will lose those hearts and minds over time—and there is evidence of that to some extent in Afghanistan.

The issue of support beyond the military needs to be considered very seriously. I know the government is doing more work in that area. I know an AFP component has been increased slightly. There is also an issue around the environment in Afghanistan and what civilian assets you can deploy in a safe manner. I would urge the government and the international community to look seriously and to a greater extent at what can be done with a more holistic approach, which will ensure that we provide the military support to protect and also the civilian support to provide better outcomes within the Afghan community. More work can be done there, and it is important that it is done. We need to recognise that mistakes have been made and also that they will be made, and we need to work to adapt from and learn from those mistakes in the future.

There has been quite a bit said about the context of the Australian community and ensuring that people understand what is going on and that there is support. Lieutenant General Peter Leahy had a proposal for parliament to approve troop deployments. I do not necessarily think that is what is needed. I do think there is a need to regularly assess what is occurring and a need for the transparency that comes with a parliamentary debate to ensure that there is that debate within the broader community.

I bring to the attention of the House a document that relates to Canada, which I was provided with by the Australian Council for International Development. Canadians produce a quarterly report to parliament which goes into the details of their engagement in Afghanistan. I would urge members to have a look at it. It provides a context for where they are up to in Afghanistan and it also lists their priorities and reports progress against those priorities. I think an approach such as that would be a good step forward, although I also welcome the commitment by the Prime Minister to a regular statement to parliament. There are also issues beyond that. There are the questions about how and when we deploy, about the nature of our force structure and whether it will meet our needs into the future.

I think there are some key questions that need to be considered within the defence area. This is a difficult and tense environment for our troops. We have to not only make sure that they very clearly understand that we have their interests at heart and will provide them with the support that they need but also as a nation look to the question of where we take this involvement into the future. We have to set objectives. We have to understand what are realistic outcomes and be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances. In an uncertain world post-Cold War we cannot afford to just stay the course because the course has been set. We need to be clear about what we seek to achieve and work to achieve it. We also need to be prepared to recognise when our objectives cannot be met or when the cost of meeting them is just too great.

I do not believe we are at that point yet. However, we need to be aware that if that point does come then we must recognise it and act accordingly. I commend the work of our troops. I commend the work of the defence forces in what is an incredibly difficult and challenging environment. The complexities of these issues will be with us for years to come, but we must at this stage continue.

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