Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs (House)) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to speak to this important motion, following the contributions of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Minister for Defence. This is a very important national and international debate, but of course today our focus is on what's happening in Afghanistan. We continue to witness, as we debate in this House, the shocking events unfolding in Afghanistan. For some, these devastating scenes are felt more keenly. For the Afghan people, and especially for women and girls, this is an unfolding tragedy, with worse to come. The promise of a peaceful, stable, democratic, inclusive society has not been realised. For the Afghan-Australian community, who watch on in despair as their friends and family are faced with the awful truth of Taliban control, I say that our thoughts are with you.

Our remarkable veterans and defence personnel who've been beseeching the government for months to act have had one simple message for me to convey to this House: 'If you want to do more to support the veterans' community in this hour, get our friends out of Afghanistan now.' That is their simple message. There is, and will continue to be, analysis, commentary and debate as to the merits or otherwise of the 20-year mission, along with the understandable concern about the manner of the withdrawal. For now, though, we must focus on what can be done to help those who helped us and need our help now. We need to ensure every Australian citizen and permanent resident is brought home and that every Afghan national who worked and fought alongside our defence personnel, aided and protected our embassy, provided security to prime ministers and ministers—as I can personally attest—is afforded safe haven here or, for now at least, in a third country. Beyond that, we must play a significant role and do our fair share in the humanitarian response to provide refuge for those fleeing persecution.

For all of the criticism I've heard about the mission, I've yet to hear a simple plausible alternative to this UN sanctioned operation. To those who say, 'What was the point of it all?' I say, 'Diminishing the capacity for terrorists to wreak global havoc was cause enough.' But there was more. In 2011 I visited Afghanistan, as Home Affairs Minister, to thank the Australian Federal Police officers I'd farewelled in Canberra only months before for training hundreds and hundreds of Afghan national police in order to build the civil capability required of that nation. I saw girls join boys in walking to school in Kabul, which was unthinkable under the Taliban, and I met with women in professional roles that had been denied them so long. Those rights, however, should be afforded to every citizen of every country and those rights have disappeared within the blink of an eye.

For now we should record our sincere appreciation for the efforts and sacrifices of our defence personnel, our aid workers, our Federal Police and our embassy staff. Right now we need to help those who helped us. We need the government to focus on doing what it can do, in every conceivable way, to ensure that those who were told that they would call Australia home, if required, get that opportunity. There is more to say about this matter in the weeks and months ahead, but right now our focus, our thoughts and our efforts must be on the situation in Afghanistan, in order to ensure we do everything we possibly can to help those who helped us.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.

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