Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

This motion by Mr Bandt, the member for Melbourne, of the Greens that the government set a date for the safe return of our troops from Afghanistan and withdraw precipitately in accordance with such a date does great damage to the credibility of the Greens with respect to security matters. This is the sort of approach to security policy that you might expect in the scribbled writings on a napkin in a cafe but are not serious considerations for those who have to deal with this nation's security.

It always amazes me that some within the Greens—who portray themselves as a progressive party, interested in the rights of women and the right of the developing world to move itself forward and lift itself from poverty, obscurity and ignorance—oftentimes find themselves siding through their misguided approaches with the forces of Islamist extremism and the medieval mindset that often drives these people.

Mr Bandt in his motion refers to the situation of women in Afghanistan. Of course, we do not accept the situation of the women in Afghanistan and want the women in Afghanistan to move forward even further than they have since the international intervention there, but the strides that have been made are enormous. So what is it that the Greens would suggest? Would they suggest that they slide backwards to the position where thousands of Afghan women were used as sex slaves, to the situation where the 70 per cent of teachers in the Afghan education system who were women were thrown out of the education system instantly and overnight, destroying the Afghan education system? Would they seek to send them back to the situation where no Afghan woman was permitted to enter politics, where no Afghan woman was permitted to work? Would they suggest that all of the strides that have been made in relation to the rights of Afghan women be thrown away simply because they have not reached a state of perfection or the advances that we would hope for them to finally achieve?

Let me remind the chamber that even in this country we sometimes are witness to situations in relation to women's rights that mean we have not quite achieved what we would like to have as well. Just recently evidence came to light of a situation in New South Wales of genital mutilations. Just because there are circumstances that may not indicate that women have achieved the state that we would like them to achieve in Afghanistan does not mean that we should abandon the effort and allow them to slide back to a situation which was far worse.

That applies across the board to every aspect of endeavour of our mission in Afghanistan. If you look at the situation in relation to education and the progress that has been made there, it is enormous. Members of the coalition and I have spent time on the ground in Uruzgan province, for example, and witnessed the efforts of our troops in building a girls school and a boys school, the restoration of the mosque and the like.

We then compare and contrast that with the approach of the Taliban to education. Education is the key enemy of the Taliban. Enlightenment is the key enemy of the Taliban. When they overran the Swat Valley in 2009 and came within 100 kilometres of Islamabad, what was the very first thing that the Taliban did in the Swat Valley? It was to blow up 100 schools. These are the people that the Greens will find themselves in alliance with in taking this sort of disreputable approach to the operation.

Mr Bandt criticises the fact that the government of Afghanistan is in negotiations—

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