Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

More than 200 years ago it was Edmund Burke who said to the electors of Bristol, ‘Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment, and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.’ On matters of judgment, nowhere is this more important than on issues of national security. I therefore feel privileged to have this opportunity to share with the House my judgment in support of Australia’s current military mission in Afghanistan. In doing so, I am conscious that within both my electorate and the broader community there are dissenting voices. This is understandable—war is a blunt instrument. It can be deeply unpopular and brings with it great pain and suffering. But there are times when neither a heavy human cost nor fragile public consensus should deter us in our task. There are times when we must take hard decisions, stare down the detractors and steel our resolve. But, most importantly, there are times when we, the public’s representatives, must elevate the debate, articulate our goals and explain to the community at large what really is at stake. Today’s war in Afghanistan is such a time. We must remember why we went there.

On September 11, 2001 the world changed forever. I call it our ‘JFK moment’. My parents’ generation could always tell us where they were when they heard JFK had been shot. My generation can always tell you where they were when they first learnt of 9-11. It was a brazen, sophisticated and terrifying attack on the US mainland that has redefined how we think of our security needs. No longer do we fear Red Army tanks rolling over western European borders and ending life as we know it; rather today it is the plain clothes al-Qaeda terrorist walking undetected into one of our major cities carrying a dirty bomb in their briefcase that strikes the deepest and most fearsome chord. This permanent, fundamental recasting of the nature of the security threat is the real lasting impact of 9-11. We must never forget that the brutal slaying of nearly 3,000 innocent civilians in 9-11 was planned by al-Qaeda from their safe haven in Afghanistan. We must never forget that 10 Australians were among the nationals of 77 countries that died that day and we must never forget that since 2001 more than 100 Australians have been killed in terrorist attacks overseas and in each case the perpetrators had links to Afghanistan.

At the time of 9-11, Afghanistan was positioned at the axis of the global terrorist movement. The United States and its allies could no longer put at risk their citizens by tolerating the status quo, and they did not. With the backing of United Nations Security Council resolution 1386, adopted on 20 December 2001, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was established. With the support of a unanimous resolution of the Australian parliament, articles 4 and 5 of the ANZUS treaty were also formally invoked. This was the first time an Australian government had invoked the treaty in the 50-year history of our alliance with the United States. Soon after, nearly 1,300 of Australia’s finest men and women in uniform were deployed. Our troops were withdrawn by the end of 2002 as the Taliban were defeated in Kabul and the pointy end of the conflict was at a close. International attention would soon turn to Iraq and only in the latter part of 2005 would Australian special forces make their way back to Afghanistan.

In 2006 Australia sent a reconstruction task force to the southern Afghanistan province of Oruzgan as the mission morphed into assisting the country in its rebuilding phase. Australia continues its critical role in Oruzgan, helping to train the 4th brigade of the Afghan National Army and strengthen the capabilities of the Afghan National Police. With 1,550 troops in the field, Australia is now the leader of the provincial reconstruction team in Oruzgan, and in the past year we have lifted our civilian contribution to the country by 50 per cent. Australia has committed nearly three-quarters-of-a-billion dollars in development assistance to Afghanistan since 2001.

We should be proud of the significant contribution but at the same time we should recognise that the mission in Afghanistan is truly a global effort. Today’s coalition force of more than 120,000 troops comes from 47 different nations, including 19 non-NATO members. Significantly, there is buy-in from the Islamic world with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Pakistan all having attended the Kabul conference in July. The global jihadist movement is as much a threat to their regimes as it is to ours, and their involvement in helping to resolve the conflict is a timely reminder that our battle is not with Islam but with an extremist ideology that has sought to hijack Islam for its own totalitarian ends.

Given the length and depth of Australia’s commitment over so many years to this distant conflict, it is legitimate to ask: why should we stay the course? Indeed, you could not find two any more different countries than Australia and Afghanistan. With its landlocked mountainous landscape, its drug trade dependent economy and literacy levels around 30 per cent, Afghanistan has seen more than its fair share of suffering over recent decades. But now the people of Afghanistan have begun to get their first glimpse through the window of hope.

The military and civilian contribution of ISAF has made, and is making, a difference. And Australia is critical to this effort. A free press and an elected parliament are in place. Trade-training schools are churning out local graduates who in turn contribute to the rebuilding effort. Australia has been involved in 78 school reconstruction projects and the allocation of 950 micro-finance loans. New hospitals and health centres have been built and new transport infrastructure—roads and bridges—are fostering commerce. And tens of thousands of Afghani police and military have been trained to enable an eventual transition to local forces to guarantee domestic security.

When it comes to the size and structure of Australia’s military commitment, the government should be guided by the expert judgment of our leaders in the field, and in this respect I support Tony Abbott’s words in this debate that our 1,550 personnel in Oruzgan should be seen as an average maintained over time rather than a limit never to be exceeded irrespective of the requirements on the ground.

We must be under no illusions for in Afghanistan there is no overnight cure. Progress is gradual and hard fought and there are continuous setbacks. Disturbing allegations of corruption in the Karzai government are the most recent manifestation. But we cannot be deterred, as the commanders tell us we are making ground and we know the cause is too important to fail. The US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, said recently that ‘winning in a counterinsurgency campaign means making progress, and in that regard we are winning.’

Were Australia to prematurely withdraw from Afghanistan, we would be sending the worst possible message to the people of Afghanistan, to our steadfast ally the United States and to all those with the intention and wherewithal to harm our citizens and our interests. We would be betraying our basic instinct as Australians to see out a tough fight even if it means taking blows along the way. And what would we leave in our stead? An even more fragile country in the invidious position of being overrun by the Taliban and used once again as a safe haven for the global terrorist network. The instability this would bring to neighbouring nuclear armed Pakistan should alarm every free-thinking leader across the world.

But most tellingly of all, were Australia to exit before the job is done, what would one say to the families of the 21 Australian soldiers killed in action and the 152 wounded in action since 2001? These 21 brave men have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and we owe it to them to stay the course. I have been very fortunate to get to know Felix and Yvonne Sher, the wonderful parents of Private Gregory Michael Sher. The Shers and I belong to the same Jewish congregation in Melbourne and we all live close by. Greg was tragically killed in a rocket attack in Oruzgan on Sunday, 4 January 2009. A member of 2nd Company, 1st Commando Regiment, he had been in Afghanistan for only six weeks and celebrated his 30th birthday only four weeks before his untimely death. Like his fellow fallen comrades, Greg left behind a loving partner and an adoring family.

Greg’s commitment to his country knew no bounds. He was an Army reservist who had also served as a medic in East Timor. He is the only Australian reservist to have been killed in Afghanistan. Greg’s father has told me how proud his son was to be a member of the Australian Defence Force—a legacy upheld by Greg’s brother Steven, a member of the RAAF Reserve, who hopes to graduate as a lieutenant in a few weeks time. The military was like an ‘extended family’ for Greg, and Felix talks proudly of how the acts of mateship continue to this day, including one fellow soldier naming his son after Greg just a few days ago. On the day Greg was killed in Afghanistan, his mates built an aluminium Star of David to locate above his coffin, respectful as they were not to see him have a cross above his head as he was transported home. Despite all the pain the Sher family has gone through, Felix wants it to be known that Afghanistan remains a cause worth fighting for. These are his words to me just last night:

We cannot withdraw until the momentum for peace, prosperity and the protection of women has reached the point where Afghanistan’s future can be secure. To do otherwise would make the contribution of our soldiers to have been in vain. It would also provide the Taliban with an opportunity to fill the vacuum and provide a fresh harvest of new recruits.

The decision to take a country to war is the hardest decision its leaders can take. Having made that decision for all the right reasons in 2001, we now have a duty and a purpose in seeing it through. I conclude where I began. It is my judgment that our military and civilian commitment to Afghanistan is in pursuit of a just cause, is in Australia’s long-term national security interest and honours the bravest sacrifice of our fallen soldiers.

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