Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, thank you for the call and thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate. I start by acknowledging the great, heartfelt sadness that 10 families must have felt on Remembrance Day. There were 10 new names added to the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial. All those 10 outstanding Australians gave their lives in the service of our country doing what our nation asked of them in Operation Slipper in Afghanistan. Sapper Jacob Moerland, Sapper Darren Smith, Private Scott Palmer, Private Timothy Aplin, Private Benjamin Chuck, Private Nathan Bewes, Trooper Jason Brown, Private Grant Kirby, Private Thomas Dale and Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney all made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan over the preceding 12 months. Their contribution, their courage and their selfless service of our nation is captured on the honour roll at the War Memorial. That brings the number of Australian lives lost in Operation Slipper to 21, and there are more than 150 people who have been wounded, some very significantly, under Operation Slipper.

I raise that because it is something I spoke with some children about on Remembrance Day at a service in Mount Eliza. It is a very real example that the good fortune we enjoy in Australia needs to be protected, and our duty is to preserve and carry forward those great gifts of freedom and liberty of opportunity that we enjoy. Where we see an opportunity to make a contribution as part of the international community we should consider our good fortune and recognise our responsibility to help others. I raise that in the context of our history as a nation. We have done that in the past, it has served our nation well and it has served humanity well. We also need to do that now. It is just one of a number of reasons why Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan is, in my mind, entirely justified. It is just and it is one that we should persevere with.

In addition to that there is the unavoidable truth that tragedy has been inflicted on Australian citizens through the most heinous acts of terrorism and violence by people whose talents were developed in Afghanistan. It is also worth recognising that a failed state in that region of the world where nuclear capability is present presents enormous problems for all of us. A functioning, regional architecture and opportunities for citizens of that region are our best antidote to not see potentially enormous and unthinkable things happen from the crumbling of civilisation, civilised discourse and governance in that part of the world.

The other thing we should also bear in mind is that, when we reflect on our own good fortune, we pay the respects that are very hard earned and well deserved on commemorative occasions like Remembrance Day. It is important to wonder to ourselves what might occur if we did not participate and recognise the enormous cost borne disproportionately by the family members of those whose loved ones have already suffered so much and by those who continue to suffer from injury, illness or impairment as a result of their service. If that sacrifice was not made what might happen?

I am happy to account for my contribution as a minister in the defence portfolio and as Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, where my duty from sun-up to sundown and through most of the night was to care for those doing extraordinary work on behalf of our nation. But had they not been doing that work, had other likeminded countries not recognised not only the threat that was present in Afghanistan but also the consequences of that threat—consequences that had already played out most horrendously—what would have happened? Would we have left that role to someone else? Were we suggesting that because we were not a combatant in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda would spare Australian citizens the heinous acts of terrorism that they perpetuate around the globe? Would we be content for others to step up and see that the cost of their actions was somehow appropriate yet our willingness not to contribute was reasonable given the international concern that inspired the engagement in Afghanistan? I think for all of those questions the answer is that if we did not turn up we would be regretting that inaction and we would be paying the cost of it—and that cost would be paid for a long time.

Al-Qaeda is nothing like the outfit that was in Afghanistan previously. Al-Qaeda is a global terrorist organisation; it seeks to end Western influence and attack Western values and it seeks to ensure that that influence and those values do not take hold in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda pursues its mission with extraordinary acts of inhumanity and heinous crimes against people to drive home its objectives. They are now not able at will to come into and leave Afghanistan to develop that lethal terrorist capacity. They have been pushed out of Afghanistan. It is already an extraordinary achievement that that training ground, that incubator of terror, is now no longer present in Afghanistan, where entry and exit was so porous. It was frightening to see the number of people who went and learned their evil craft in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, though, is a coalition of political, military and tribal organisations that basically wants to run Afghanistan. It has more of a domestic focus. Those in the Taliban are keen to impose their will on the people of Afghanistan. They are trying to exercise the weight of oppression to control the population, not the weight of their argument. They use the calibre of firearms to persuade people to follow their direction, not the calibre of the leadership or the quality of the ideas they put to the people there. They continue to represent a threat, and they continue to symbolise the reason for our engagement—they are a threat to the physical security of people in Afghanistan and beyond.

Afghanistan is referred to as a military engagement. That is but one phase of where we are at in Afghanistan. I think the Prime Minister, when talking about a decade-long engagement, could have articulated more precisely that this engagement will change over time—it will adapt to new circumstances and threats of the kind that al-Qaeda represented and that the Taliban, to a lesser extent but still at great cost of life, now represents. As that threat is removed, pushed back like a tide of evil and danger whose goal is to maim and kill others to gain a foothold of influence and power, we need to maintain our efforts. We need to make sure that our perseverance in a security and military sense does not wane and allow that tide to come in again. If that tide comes back into Afghanistan, anything else we seek to achieve in Afghanistan will not be achievable.

Children do not go to school when they are terrified about walking down the street or terrified that they will be the subject of a random bombing attack designed to cause fear and intimidation and to terrorise a population into following an alternative strategy on the direction of the government not because it is in the citizens’ best interests but because the fear is so great. People do not go to health clinics when the resources in that clinic are not safe and secure and when medical practitioners risk their own lives simply by venturing out into those community spaces. Literacy does not improve when there is not the opportunity to engage in education. Livelihoods do not improve when the place is so dysfunctional that there are no prospects of any kind of economy taking hold.

Women in Afghanistan need the opportunity to make a full contribution to lift the country’s opportunities and prosperity and to shape a better future. Women need to be involved and they need that opportunity to participate. I have often said that if women are not being fully engaged in developing fragile countries and economies they are tackling the challenge with one arm tied behind their back. Yet in the Taliban’s view of the world women do not have that contribution to make. At the Telstra Business Women’s Awards presentation the other night I heard story after story about the remarkable contributions of women, and that reinforced my view of how much poorer countries like Afghanistan will be if organisations like the Taliban have their way.

We need to pursue a position of strength to try and secure a negotiated peace settlement. You cannot negotiate from a position of weakness where it has already been proven that threats and intimidation, force and violence may be used as part of the artillery. We need to be in a position of strength to negotiate a political settlement. It is encouraging news that more conflicts now end in negotiated settlements than in military victories. It also turns out that wars that end in negotiated settlements last three times longer than those that end in military victories but are nearly twice as likely to restart within five years. So if we are to negotiate a peace settlement and put Afghanistan on a positive footing with their future being shaped by Afghanis, we need to recognise the risks of the threat re-emerging—that is why I use the analogy of keeping the tide out.

As a state emerges—it is past being a fragile or a failed state; it is now in a state building mode—safety and security are basic preconditions, otherwise nothing else will be achieved. That is why a military presence is justified but it needs to adapt and recalibrate as the domestic forces begin to provide that basic security, and that makes everything else possible. As that state is secured, we then get on with state building. The elections in Afghanistan might not pass the test of being free and fair by our standards but they were an expression of the people’s will and that Afghanis can shape their own future. Their systems of democracy will improve. There is no question that corruption is a cancer on the work going on in Afghanistan but, sadly, it is not alone. We have seen it in other countries, and we have to work persistently to overcome that.

It is also worth recognising what the international literature says about fragile states, failed states and state creation: it is a long-haul business. As the military’s presence declines and a security-policing presence emerges and as objectives of livelihoods develop, services are put in place, schools are built, education and health services become available and there is the full participation of citizens, the tool kit needs to change and adapt. But that is going to take a long time. Even the recreation of fragile states—we are not talking about building from the ground up—is extraordinarily expensive to support.

Under the previous coalition government, I was involved in the development of a white paper which provided some information about the cost of fragile states and how, on average, they remain fragile for half a century. You do not need to look too far to see this. The work with countries in our own neighbourhood has seen Australia continue to be involved with fragile states. Opportunities need to be supported through aid and development, and good governance is needed to support the continuation of that work—and we have been at it for decades. I also invite people to look closer to home. Australia have a recognised competency in dealing with the fragile and failed state recovery mode. We have some experience. We did it in East Timor, we did it in Bougainville and we are still at it in the Solomon Islands. We have developed some competencies around that space. The need to get local governance working and to see people want what that offers is a key precondition.

The Afghanis will welcome our support but, as a friend of mine who has done a number of deployments said, they need to know you are for real. You need to do what you say you are going to do to be valued by the Afghanis, and you need to stay the course. We have that reputation. But to get the Afghan people working collaboratively and in a synchronised way with our international efforts, we need to keep face with the Afghan community. That is a cultural precondition. We need to do what we say we are going to do. We need to see this through. We need to make sure that the support is there and that the Afghan people can turn their efforts towards a partnership with the international community and know that those partners will hang around. This builds respect and credibility; it builds preconditions for a recovering state in Afghanistan. But this is going to take decades, and we need to be prepared to make that commitment.

See this speech in context