Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the Minister for Defence's fifth update to the House. He said in his March update, the first of the five this year, that he would seek to make timely, relevant responses on combat operations in Afghanistan and, to his credit, he has kept his word. I note the machinations of this morning and the loss of Speaker Jenkins. Despite having been tossed out nine times in this parliament, I am sure none of which were my fault, I certainly echo the Leader of the Opposition's words that the House has wide regard and respect for Speaker Jenkins. I am sure he will be missed, certainly on the reruns of the Sunday television programs.

I rise for the fifth time this year to respond to the Minister for Defence. Last Tuesday I responded to the Prime Minister's update in respect of combat operations in Afghanistan. I thank the minister for the opportunity to respond to his comments. I note the time the minister spent with respect to transition and the way transition is going. The coalition offers wide, deep and lasting bipartisan support to combat operations in Afghanistan; the bipartisan support is not conditional, except on the national interest. Whilst bipartisan support is given freely and given widely with great trust, we do acknowledge that it is not a blank cheque. We do expect to be kept updated, both publicly through the House and privately through the statutes of the House. I acknowledge that the minister does both of those to his enduring credit.

The Lisbon treaty set the transition date for 2014, a date the coalition accepts and acknowledges. The government, to their credit, has also reinforced this by making it clear that any withdrawal from Afghanistan will be metrics-based and based on a sound judgment at a command level. We believe the government continues to hold to that account and I note the minister's comments on transition that we have now moved to a stage of mobile mentoring teams. We are moving away from an establishment of 30 footprints and forward patrol bases to manning 11 bases, and the minister hopes to have the permanent manning down to four patrol bases with the extensive use of the mobile mentoring teams to make up for the reduced footprint of Australian soldiers.

I note the minister's comments that the transition is going well. In terms of stability, economics, infrastructure and construction, things continue to improve. The Leader of the Opposition and I were at the forward patrol base in the upper reaches of the Mirabad Valley, six kilometres outside Tarin Kowt, in October 2010, when a massive firefight was underway to capture the ridgeline above the Mirabad Valley. In May 2011 I went back to that patrol base and sat down with the leaders of the community, including a number of former mujaheddin fighters, in a traditional shura for an hour and a half. The issues of security, defence and insurgency were not raised once in that hour and a half, yet six months before there was a brutal firefight on that ridgeline to capture the area. Six months later, such was the degree of security that in that one and a half hours of discussion the issues raised included: when is the road coming to the Mirabad Valley? Thank you for the mosque. When are we looking at replacement crops for poppies? How are we dealing with economic activity? When is the school replacement going in? How is the issue of markets being addressed?

There is no greater example of the transition from combat operations to economic activity than in the Musaza'i patrol base, seven kilometres outside Tarin Kowt in the Mirabad valley. Its testimony adds value and weight to the minister's words that the transition is moving sensibly and appropriately.

With respect to the minister's announcement, the coalition supports the commencement of the transfer of detainees to the Afghan National Director of Security, the NDS. It is fundamental that the NDS within Oruzgan are capable, are appropriate, have enough staff and resources and the proper processes to enable them to effectively take detainees to prosecute information available to them, to treat them humanely within the rules of armed conflict and, within a civil society, the law, and then release them or move them through to a court process. The minister has provided a range of assurances that the Afghan National Director of Security is operating within these norms. The investigation the minister alluded to has shown that in the Oruzgan facility no noncompliance was found. The coalition accepts that and supports the commencement of the transfer of detainees.

We also support the length of time to hold detainees increasing from 96 hours to 10 days which is in line with our ISAF partners. In the previous four responses I have made to the minister—in March, May, July and October—I have called consistently for a number of things to occur, including for the time to hold detainees to be widened from 96 hours to the full 10 days in line with our ISAF partners. The minister, to his credit, has agreed to that and has given the instruction for that to occur. That will give the military a whole range of options to use. It is important that in armed conflict, which is ostensibly a battle of wills, we provide our military with the full gamut of combat power and the full gamut to achieve effects on the battlefield. One of the major ways to achieve an effect on the battlefield is a full and proper prosecution of information and processing that into intelligence.

It is impossible and has been impossible to fully prosecute that battlefield effect while holding detainees for only 96 hours and, in that, only allowing a limited degree of tactical questioning. In line with that, the coalition supports the minister's moving towards setting up a full primary interrogation centre which allows the full prosecution of information from detainees. Likewise, the coalition supports the full use of our detainee facility. The Commonwealth has spent $5 million on a state-of-the-art ostensible interrogation facility, and we have not used its full gamut of capabilities for 12 months. With the announcement by the minister that a full interrogation capability will be sent to Afghanistan, it will allow us to fully prosecute that information effect on the battlefield.

I join the minister in acknowledging that some people may have concerns, especially around the term 'interrogation' and what it actually means. I note the member for Eden-Monaro is here. He was in Iraq during the Abu Graib affair and played a significant role in bringing sanity to what was otherwise an insane situation. He and I both know, having served operationally overseas, that perception can tend to be a long way away from the fact. Let me assure people that interrogation is as much an art as a science, but it is an incredibly disciplined art and a disciplined science. We are talking about a primary interrogation centre that includes full medical support, full psychological support, substantially trained interrogators and where everything is captured on CCTV. There is also full access for the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations. I can speak with some authority on the issue of interrogation, being a trained military interrogator—probably the only one the House has had for a while, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott.

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