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

I thank the minister for providing his final update to the House for this parliamentary sitting. I thank the minister for his consistency in keeping the House informed regularly throughout his term as the Minister for Defence. He has done so quite openly and quite forthrightly.

Yesterday, the long war in Afghanistan reached another historic milestone. NATO and coalition forces formally announced the handover of the final provinces and districts to Afghan security forces. President Hamid Karzai described the announcement as a historic moment for his nation and the fulfilment of one of his greatest desires. Whether the President's desire will be met in the future is now fully and totally up to him, his government and their security forces. NATO and coalition forces, including substantial elements of the ADF, have done an enormous amount of heavy lifting over a very long decade. The ANA and the Afghan National Police, the ANP, are as equipped and as trained and prepared as they could be. Now is the final moment of the testing. Now we determine whether Afghan forces and the people of that country are able to rise up and realise their self-appointed destiny as a nation in the full concert of others around the world.

The minister was right to recap on the just and right way Australia entered the war—to face the realisation of extreme Islamic terrorism head-on and to stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends and other allies around the world. Terrorism is a threat that cannot and must not be negotiated with. It must be faced; it must be defeated.

This was the war that saw the ANZUS alliance activated. And we are not fair-weather friends; tens of thousands of Australia's finest men and women have poured through Afghanistan on continuous rotations. We have provided the third-largest special forces contingent within that troubled country, with numbers and numbers of our special forces soldiers rotating through on up to nine separate occasions.

Ours has been a long and tough fight. We have provided substantial air, land and sea assets. As a nation we have provided the largest contingent of forces per capita; a phenomenal feat, not just as a non-NATO country but for any nation. We have not weathered great political storms that have seen other governments fall and forces withdrawn. The government and the opposition have stayed shoulder to shoulder in ensuring that a legitimate, right and just fight against those who would seek to do us harm was adequately and appropriately responded to.

It has been a long road in this fight against extreme Islamic terrorism. We deployed forces in response to the barbaric acts of September 11 in late 2001. Apart from a hiatus in 2003-05, when Australia's contingent was two lone engineers, we have maintained a consistent and strong presence. We have paid an exacting price: 39 Australians killed in action; 254 wounded in action, including a special forces soldier in the last 24 hours, after a heavy landing of a Black Hawk; numerous bravery awards given to our fighting men and women, justly deserved, including three Victoria Crosses.

Of course I will join the minister today when the 2nd Commando Regiment receives the Army battle honour for eastern Shah Wali Kot for its heroic fight in the May-June period 2010.

The future now is Afghan security forces securing their own country, especially the difficult southern provinces and the districts that they will operate independently—under independent command, with independent force dispositions from the end of the year. Australian forces will come home from Uruzgan at the final parts of this year and early next year. And there is every indication that Uruzgan province will not have a coalition footprint post withdrawal as it has not yet been named as one of the 10 provincial areas where coalition forces will remain.

The 4th Brigade of the Afghan National Army has been trained by the finest soldiers in the world: the men and women of the Australian Defence Force. They will operate in a province where there will be no coalition footprint to assist. They will truly have to realise their long-held dream of autonomy and security independently. Our military is proud of what they have been able to achieve. They have trained the Afghan forces to the highest possible standard. I am confident the 4th Brigade of the ANA will rise to the challenge.

The coalition will continue and will maintain its strong bipartisan support to the government on Commonwealth operations in Afghanistan right through to the election. I have been proud over the last three to four years, as the only member of the coalition shadow defence team here in the House of Representatives, to have put strong voice to that bipartisanship for our combat operations. It may surprise the Australian people to know that bipartisanship is not so much the minister and I at the dispatch box standing shoulder to shoulder; it mostly involves closed-door meetings, phone calls, joint flights, like that which the minister and I will do today to join the 2nd Commando Regiment, and keeping each other informed as to where we are going. Bipartisanship starts privately; it exhibits its face publicly. We have not wavered during some of the darkest days in this parliament when our casualties were high. The bipartisanship will continue through to the election and, regardless of the result, it will continue post election from the coalition's point of view.

In responding to the minister's forced disposition post withdrawal, can I simply back up the minister with his view that post September, if the nation does elect a coalition government, they can be assured that we will continue with the planned withdrawal of the bulk of the combat force and that we will honour the agreements the concert of nations have put together in terms of future boots on the ground. That includes our long-held support to 'Duntroon in the desert'—because there is no way I am letting the Poms get away with calling it 'Sandhurst in the sand', which is the ANA officer training in Kabul—support we have offered from the very beginning. Likewise, this includes the logistics training advisory team, as well as continued embedded personnel within ISAF commands where it is warranted.

I note from the minister that our gunners have returned from running and commanding the Afghan school of guns, which was a remarkable success. It was a landmark contribution that had the hallmarks of the great things that Australia's fighting men and women do. Faced with having to train in a technical environment of gunnery, and with a largely illiterate Afghan force, it was the Australians, the young men and women, who devised an educational regime of teaching the gunners how to read and write within a six- or seven-week period as part of their training program. I believe it was so successful that commander ISAF came and visited to see what the Australians were doing in order to extend it further afield in other parts of training. The Anzac spirit of innovativeness and entrepreneurism on the battlefield continues to this day.

We join the minister in considering the use of any possible special force capabilities when we have greater clarity over the status of forces agreement that they would operate under. I believe the government is still working with its coalition partners in trying to get sufficient clarity on that. The minister and I have spoken at length about it, and sufficient clarity at present does not exist in terms of a mandate under which they would operate. Suffice it to say, we will engage quickly and strongly with our allies and partners, and we will demonstrate that great Australian spirit of reliability and conscientiousness as a partner.

The Australia Army can also rest easy that if there is a future coalition government it will not be resting on our laurels post Afghanistan. There will be no post-Vietnam long-peace approach to our military, a peace that I entered as a serving officer—and I look across at the minister for procurement, then Colonel Kelly, and it was a long peace that he entered—but that was interrupted by operations that, frankly, the military was not prepared for. We are committed to a hardened, networked Army which can operate in a network-centric joint environment as part of a maritime strategy. We are committed to the next phase of the Army's development, especially Land 121 Phase 4 and Land 400, which go to the bulk of the Army's vehicle replacements.

The post-Afghanistan Army, building on a very sensible and well-considered force generation cycle—plan BEERSHEBA—will be a tough, hardened capable force able to meet the government's strategy objectives. That is our aim for a post-Afghanistan military. In that spirit we have announced that there will be no cuts to the Defence Force under any incoming coalition government and that all savings from the bureaucracy will be reinvested back into Defence.

I thank the minister for his work with our wounded warriors and their integration back into Australia. We are in furious agreement with the minister on his concerted approach to caring for our wounded, both physically and mentally. We vociferously supported the MOU and a closer working relationship between Defence and the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and note the effectiveness of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel being one and the same person. That way the minister cannot hand something off to another minister; he has to hand it off to himself. That has proven to be a remarkably effective way forward and, considering the wind-down from Afghanistan, the issues we are now facing in mental health, and the extent of the MOU, there is considerable sense in continuing that approach.

Minister, thank you for the opportunity to speak one last time in this parliament on our combat operations. The withdrawal is progressing well. The amount of cargo being removed from the Afghanistan Theater of Operations is astonishing, as we seek to move almost $3 billion of equipment out through a limited land bridge and an extensive air bridge before shipping cargo back. We are now in a logistics battle, where our logisticians will rise to the fore. If there was to be a logistics war then this is it, and I am confident that our loggies can rise to the challenge. The minister can be sure that the coalition will provide considered bipartisan support right to the very end of this parliament. I thank the minister for the opportunity to update the House.

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