George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

‘War is an ugly thing.’ So said the great British philosopher John Stuart Mill. ‘War is an ugly thing,’ he said, ‘but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth war is much worse.’ I could not agree more.

The problem that I have had with this debate is not so much that it has allowed a few political fringe dwellers to express those decayed and degraded feelings but that in expressing those feelings they may have achieved nothing but to demoralise our troops in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, those with this minority view in the Committee and in the House seem to attract some larger following in the general community—but certainly not the majority of people. They attract that larger following because they can rally the uninformed with one word: peace. It is true that peace is an ideal that should be strived for, but the opposite of peace is not war; it is injustice. Injustice is the enemy of peace. Free men and women cannot live in peace while injustice prevails.

Let us remember the basis for this conflict in Afghanistan. Indeed, let us never forget that fateful day, September 11, 2001. Extremist Islamic terrorists, al-Qaeda operatives, hijacked four planes, flying two into the World Trade Centre and one into the Pentagon, while another was lost in a field in Pennsylvania. Thousands of lives were lost from that one act of terror, and the reality is that Afghanistan was the home base for the training and leadership of al-Qaeda and the terrorists who launched this attack. They were invited to operate from Afghanistan by the extremist Islamic Taliban regime that was in place at the time; it was basically state-sponsored terrorism. With that injustice, there was a grave duty to act.

I want to digress for a moment. There are those who would actually deny that that injustice occurred. I can quote the labour movement’s Kevin Bracken, the Victorian branch secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and the President of the Victorian Trades Hall Council. Mr Bracken believes that the official story of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. He believes that 9/11 did not happen, or at least not as we saw it happen. He thinks that the United States government was behind it. While this was reported in the media only recently, it is a matter of record that Mr Bracken has been peddling his conspiracy theories throughout the Victorian union movement since 2006. What a disgrace.

His is not a lone voice from the Left on this. In fact, a Greens candidate, Bob Brown—he shares his party leader’s name—said earlier this year:

The 9/11 commission was not conclusive that al-Qa’ida was responsible … There are huge questions that need to be asked—one building came down without being hit, architects say the building looked like they were brought down by controlled explosions …

I am also aware that New South Wales Greens promoted a series of 9/11 conspiracy forums and fundraisers in their e-newsletter in late 2008. The Greens also have party members like John Bursill, who operates the 911oz website, which also peddles these 9/11 conspiracy theories. The Greens are linked to the United States party of the Greens through the Global Greens Coordination organisation, which connects to all these Green parties around the world. The US Greens are led by Cynthia McKinney, who is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. I raise all of this because, sadly, this is the result of a view that pervades the Left. It is a view of anti-Americanism, and quite frankly it clouds the Left’s judgment. I think anti-Americanism is at the heart of the opposition to our operations in Afghanistan. That is a great shame because, as I said earlier, the opposite of peace is injustice and one would think that those in the Left would rail against injustice.

I do not just speak of the injustice that was wrought upon the United States of America on 11 September 2001 or of the terrorist attacks in the rest of the Western world, the Middle East, the developing world and even on our doorstep, in Bali. I speak as well of the injustice that was taking place in Afghanistan itself, under the oppressive, extremist Islamic regime of the Taliban. Under the Taliban there was a complete ban on women’s work outside the home, and that ban included female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female doctors and nurses were allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul. There was a ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institutions. The Taliban had converted most girls schools into Islamic religious seminaries. Women were required to wear a long veil, or burkah, covering them from head to toe. Those not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules were subject to whipping, beating and verbal abuse. Women were whipped in public for even having their ankles uncovered. Women accused of having sex outside of marriage were publicly stoned.

The Taliban banned listening to music and watching movies and television, and they banned use of the internet. They forced Afghan youth to have haircuts and ordered Afghan men to wear Islamic clothes and a cap. They ordered that men not shave or trim their beards, which should grow long enough to protrude from a fist clasped at the point of the chin. They made non-Muslim minorities wear distinct badges or stitch a yellow cloth onto their dresses to differentiate them from the majority Muslim population—echoes of Nazi Germany. I know these are sideline issues to our national security. The reason we wanted the Taliban gone was that they sponsored terrorism and harboured terrorists. But we should acknowledge that as a result of our actions this oppressive regime was removed along with most of those unjust rules which were offensive to the liberty of the individual.

I compare that regime to the situation in Afghanistan now, due in part to the work of our troops. According to the Department of Defence, in the past nine years there has been a dramatic increase in school enrolments: from one million in 2001—and no girls in schools—to more than six million today, two million of whom are girls. Today 85 per cent of the Afghani population has access to basic health services which were available to less than 10 per cent of the population under the Taliban. Some 10,000 kilometres of rural roads have been rehabilitated, employing hundreds of thousands of locals and more than 39,000 community based infrastructure projects, such as wells, clinics and roads, in more than 22,000 communities across Afghanistan have progressed. The injustices of the past are being undone.

The Dawson electorate stretches from Mackay to Townsville, so I want to particularly acknowledge the part Townsville’s 1RAR has played in this progress in Afghanistan. I also want to acknowledge Mackay base troops whom I are aware have served or are serving in Afghanistan, including returned veteran Kerin Connolly and, from the member for Capricornia’s electorate, Sarina brothers Jeremy and Brett Kipping.

With every combat effort there is a risk of combat and operational injuries and deaths, and it is certainly sobering to think that 160 have been injured and 21 of our men have sacrificed their lives for their country in Afghanistan. Any death is tragic, but the death of a service man or woman undertaking a duty for their nation is perhaps even more tragic. But those deaths are not in vain.

There is an old saying that I have heard from many a digger, particularly about World War II. It goes something like this: ‘We were fighting them over there so we didn’t have to fight them here.’ And let us not think for one moment that the threat of terrorism cannot reach our shores. It may not be in my home town of Mackay but it could be in Sydney, Brisbane, Lavarack Barracks in Townsville or a strategic economic asset, such as Dalrymple Bay coal terminal or the Abbot Point coal terminal. A terrorist attack on our home soil could have occurred if we had neglected to pursue radical Islamic terrorism where it was fostered. These murderers reached Bali, where they killed 92 Australians in two separate bombings. So they can reach us and our shores unless we fight them on their shores and on the shores where they are harboured.

The 21 brave men who have sacrificed their lives have done so over there in Afghanistan so that Australians—be they Christians, Jews, Muslims or atheists—are not sacrificed here at the hands of the terrorists. It is for this reason that we cannot walk away from Afghanistan. We cannot allow it to return to a hotbed of radicalism. We cannot walk away from the war on terror and the war on extreme and radical Islam. We cannot walk away from a concerted attack on the West because of its values of freedom, liberty and democracy. We cannot walk away because we want some sort of false peace. I go back to John Stuart Mill and continue the quote which I began with:

The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

I salute the better men and women who serve this nation through our defence forces and dedicate this speech to their efforts.

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