John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—The purpose of this statement is to inform the House of the government’s decision to send to Afghanistan an additional 150 troops of the ADF to reinforce the reconstruction task force and to provide enhanced force protection. The statement will also provide the parliament with the government’s latest assessment of the security situation in Afghanistan and the challenges facing the Karzai government and the coalition.

The Afghan people are working to achieve stability, peace and democracy after many years of violence and extremism. For Afghanistan, the path to security will be long and hard, with many challenges lying ahead. But Afghanistan will not have to face these challenges alone. Australia, along with many others in the international community, is there to assist the Afghan people.

We have already witnessed what happens when the global community turns its back on extremism. Afghanistan was neglected for too long, condemning the Afghan people to decades of war and poverty. But the world is now much more aware of the dangers of ignoring extremism and fundamentalism. The stability of Afghanistan has wider implications for global security, and it is for this reason the Australian government is committed to ensuring that Afghanistan achieves long-term peace.

Afghanistan’s social indicators remain sobering. At 46 years, Afghan life expectancy is one of the world’s lowest, and at least 20 years lower than that of all of Afghanistan’s neighbours. One in five children still die before the age of five, and the country has some of the world’s lowest literacy rates. In addition, 3.4 million Afghans remain outside their country and there is much room for improvement in the country’s human rights situation.

Afghanistan is still one of the world’s poorest countries. Decades of war destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and severely disrupted economic activity, including in agriculture. Criminal and terrorist activity continues to hamper economic growth, and the expansion of the drug trade remains of very deep concern. Sustained economic growth will be required to make a significant dent in the country’s chronic poverty.

These problems are complex and will not be solved quickly. But Australia cannot and will not abandon Afghanistan. We need to remain committed to supporting this fledgling democracy.

Through our aid program we are working with Afghans, international organisations including the United Nations, and our other international partners to support Afghanistan’s transition from conflict to stability, peace and democracy.

At the London conference in January 2006 the government committed $55 million in development assistance to Afghanistan through to June 2007. This is part of a commitment of up to $150 million over the next five years. These funds will go towards improving security, rebuilding institutions, protecting human rights, especially for women and girls, and improving the delivery of essential services to ordinary Afghans. It builds on the $110 million we have disbursed since 2001 to assist in reconstruction and development.

Our efforts, and those of our coalition partners, are bearing fruit. Afghans have embraced democracy and open, democratic institutions are developing. Afghanistan now has a democratic constitution and a democratically elected president and parliament. The country’s first parliamentary elections in 30 years were held in September 2005. Some 6.4 million Afghans, representing over 50 per cent of registered voters, turned out to elect representatives to the lower house and the 34 provincial councils.

In an encouraging sign for the inclusiveness of Afghanistan’s burgeoning civil society, women featured prominently in these elections: 68 women were elected to the lower house, taking 27 per cent of available seats; and 121 women were elected to provincial councils, representing almost 30 per cent of available seats at this level.

The Afghan government has made education of women and girls a priority in an effort to overcome the legacy of the Taliban. With the entry of women into Afghanistan’s parliament and provincial councils, Afghans now have an additional opportunity to address the injustices of the past.

Just as democracy is becoming more deeply rooted in Afghanistan, economic recovery is providing new economic opportunities. Real GDP is expected to grow by almost 12 per cent in 2006. This builds on strong growth rates over the past few years, even if from a low base.

The ordinary people of Afghanistan are benefiting directly from these developments. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, a UNICEF immunisation program has vaccinated more than 2.3 million children under the age of five against polio—almost eradicating that disease.

The indicators of progress in Afghanistan are promising, but significant challenges remain. Afghan society is still predominantly rural in character, and the country’s democratic institutions, though developing, remain fragile and the struggle against extremists continues.

The level of violence has increased in Afghanistan in recent months as the Taliban and other terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, seek to chip away at the credibility of the Afghan government and prevent reconstruction taking place. Security beyond Kabul, particularly in the east and the south, is the worst since the Taliban fell. Suicide bombings have increased.

Australia, as the House will know, made a significant contribution to coalition operations in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001. With the completion of that particular task, our forces returned home with the thanks of all Australians. It is worth noting, in light of the negative and opportunistic comments now being made by some in the opposition, that at the time that decision was made, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Crean—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn’t you tell us the truth about what the Afghan government told you?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

warmly welcomed the government’s decision—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn’t you tell us?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

arguing that—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are disgraceful!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Griffith is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

it was a vindication of his call for Australia to fight terrorism closer to home, in our region, in Australia. They were the words of the then Leader of the Opposition welcoming the government’s decision to bring home our forces then, and it gives the lie to the opportunistic comments emanating, as is apparent from his interjection, from the member for Griffith at this time.

Following a reassessment of the security situation in Afghanistan by the coalition in 2005, the government decided to again send troops to Afghanistan. We now have about 200 personnel serving in the special forces task group in Afghanistan. This task group is providing reconnaissance, surveillance and other specialised capabilities to the coalition’s operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who continue to threaten Afghanistan’s fragile stability. In dangerous circumstances, the special forces have, as always, done a magnificent job.

Two ADF Chinook helicopters and about 110 personnel are also currently operating in Afghanistan. This capability provides aeromedical evacuation, air mobility and logistic support to Australian troops and coalition partners. As I announced in May, the Chinooks will continue to operate in Afghanistan until April 2007 providing vital airlift support.

But the struggle against the Taliban and its fundamentalist allies is far from over. The international community, including Australia, continues to have a crucial role to play in assisting the Afghan government meet its security challenges. The security challenge is twofold: firstly, to provide a secure environment to allow Afghans to rebuild their society free from violence and extremism and, secondly, to strengthen Afghanistan’s institutions so that they can provide a stronger framework for democratisation, religious tolerance and economic growth.

Of course, the two elements are linked. Removal of the immediate dangers facing the Afghan people is essential, but so too is ensuring that Afghanistan has the infrastructure and institutions to support its democratically elected government and dealing with those who may attempt to threaten Afghanistan’s democracy and security in the future. It is because of this that the Australian government has committed an ADF reconstruction task force to support the Netherlands led provincial reconstruction team. The ADF will work with the Netherlands as part of phase III of the NATO led International Security Assistance Force expansion into southern Afghanistan.

This reconstruction task force will work in Oruzgan province, in southern Afghanistan, on reconstruction and community based projects with the aim of building the long-term viability of Afghan communities. The task force will undertake construction projects, provide project management skills and deliver trade training for the local population. These activities will ensure that the benefits of the deployment continue long after our personnel have returned.

The reconstruction task force will be in Afghanistan at the invitation of the government of Afghanistan. It will work in Oruzgan for a period of two years.

The reconstruction task force will perform a vital role in what is a dangerous environment. The government is aware of the risks faced by the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan and is committed to ensuring that the reconstruction task force is fully equipped and resourced to conduct this highly important task.

After careful consideration, the government has decided to increase the size of the reconstruction task force from 240 personnel to 270. This will enhance the security, robustness and flexibility of the task force.

The government has also decided that the reconstruction task force deployment will include an infantry company group of about 120 personnel to provide enhanced force protection. After six months, the security situation in Oruzgan will be reviewed and the task force structure will be reconsidered in the light of that review.

The additional deployments will therefore bring the total reconstruction task force strength to approximately 400.

The task force will be made up of a number of elements—command, security and protection, engineering, administrative support and tactical intelligence services. The force will be equipped with a number of Bushmaster Infantry Mobility Vehicles and a number of Australian Light Armoured Vehicles or ASLAVs. The reconstruction task force will be drawn primarily from the 1st Brigade in Darwin and will be under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mick Ryan.

The Australian task force will have its own headquarters and will operate under the national command of Australia’s joint task force in the Middle East area of operations. ADF units and personnel deployed in Afghanistan remain under Australian national command.

The reconstruction task force will work closely with the Netherlands and other NATO partners. The government is very pleased with Dutch planning and preparations and very impressed with the military capability of the Dutch forces that are being deployed to Afghanistan. We are very confident that we will be able to work closely with them.

Advance elements of the reconstruction task force will start to deploy into Afghanistan during this August to commence preparation of base facilities and logistic support infrastructure. These elements will be followed by the majority of the reconstruction task force deploying in September with the final elements expected to deploy in November of this year.

Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, and any military operation conducted there carries significant risks. The possibility of ADF casualties cannot be discounted. I ask all Australians to support the members of the Australian Defence Force who are serving their country by helping to create an environment of security and stability in Afghanistan. I understand, and I know all members of this House will understand, that this is a difficult time for them and their families and I ask all of you to keep these brave and dedicated men and women in your thoughts and prayers.

I present the following document:

Australian Defence Force commitment to Afghanistan—Ministerial Statement, 9 August 2006

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the document.

Question agreed to.

I seek leave to move a motion to enable the Leader of the Opposition to speak for 17 minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Beazley speaking for a period not exceeding 17 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports this decision and Labor supports our troops. This will be the most dangerous Australian mission to date in the war on terror. The danger our troops face now cannot be overstated. We know they will perform their duties professionally and courageously. They always make us proud and this will be no exception. As they prepare to leave, our thoughts and best wishes are with them and with their families who watch as they go to fight for us. And they will remain in our thoughts and prayers until they are home safe again.

This should not be understated in any shape or form: this is a very dangerous task indeed. The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and the area in which our troops are deployed is one of the most threatening areas. The troops that are there now, based around the SAS and other elements of special forces, are constantly engaged, and we have been blessed so far by the fact that in this particular phase of the operation we have lost no lives. This has not been the experience of other nations engaged and fighting alongside us.

I suspect that the augmentation in the size of this force, which is slightly bigger than that which was anticipated from previous government announcements, probably reflects the fact that the Minister for Defence and/or his advisers have made a calculation in relation to the types of dangers that would be involved for those doing civil reconstruction alongside their brothers and sisters more actively engaged in combat and have come to the conclusion that they will need a deal more protection than might originally have been assumed. That seems to me to be the case on the increased numbers.

It is a deployment which has bipartisan support and we would say to the government: ‘As you make your calculations of what is required for the troops in the field, if they require additional support from other elements of their military forces then they ought to get it.’ This is a very difficult task, and a dangerous task, on which they are engaged.

As I said, the deployment has bipartisan support, so therefore I was disappointed, but not surprised, that the Prime Minister used part of his statement to attack the Labor Party and attack the opposition. Unfortunately, as is now his wont, the Prime Minister did not tell the whole truth. Labor has long supported the deployment of Australian troops to Afghanistan, but, rather than stay until the job was done in Afghanistan, the government withdrew our troops during 2002. Labor supported this move at the time in good faith, based on the Howard government’s statements that the security situation in Afghanistan was under control. But what the Howard government did not say publicly then and what the Prime Minister did not say in his remarks to this House just a few moments ago was this: we now know that he withdrew our troops from Afghanistan in the face of private diplomatic protests from the government of that country. The Afghans pleaded with the Australian government in a letter dated November 2002 to continue Australian military assistance because, as they said, ‘Terrorism is still alive and well.’

Of course, we now know that this plea was ignored, and now we are going back to fight terrorism in Afghanistan again. John Howard should not have cut and run from Afghanistan at that time. It was the wrong decision, and I am glad that he has reversed it. It meant that Australian forces were absent during a critical period in the breakdown of security, stability and central control in Afghanistan. It was a time when al-Qaeda and the Taliban were able to hang on and regroup, and now they are once again able to attack. Labor saw this and, following my shadow minister Kevin Rudd’s visit to Afghanistan in April 2004, took the serious step of calling for an expansion of Australian troop involvement there, and some time later this occurred to the Howard government.

We cannot underestimate the consequence for Afghanistan of this nation and our allies taking their eye off the ball at that crucial period of time. We of course, in good faith, backed the decision by the government of the day because we are overwhelmingly of the view that the primary fight for Australia in the war on terror is in the region around us. There are many assisting us in Afghanistan. In this region, there are few to play the sorts of roles that we are capable of playing. This is why our focus must be in this area. We have not said that that should be exclusively the position but, nevertheless, we should move with very great reluctance away from that point.

The Leader of the Opposition then believed what the Prime Minister had to say to him, but the Prime Minister concealed from the Australian people the exact state of affairs there, and the consequence of the failure to keep an eye on the ball has been the comeback of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and a vastly more difficult situation for our troops to now handle on the ground. Serious errors were made. They were of course made for a reason. As we now know, the ground was being prepared for the redeployment of troops in the direction of Iraq, and not the least casualty of that massive error has been an appropriate, continuous engagement with the people who started this whole business by acquiescing in and launching that attack on the United States on 11 September 2001. So our troops are in the front line of taking on board the penalties which have accrued to those who would defend the interests of the Afghanistan government that have been a product of the mistaken policy in which this government has been closely engaged.

I have said before that, even though this area is outside of Australia’s immediate zone of interest, when it comes to dealing with terrorism we have supported that deployment, and we have done it for two reasons. The first is this: Australian troops are fighting in Afghanistan because we are signatories to the ANZUS alliance. We invoked the ANZUS alliance in the aftermath of September 11. No-one should ever forget that Australia entered the war on terror in Afghanistan under our ANZUS obligations. Our ally had been attacked. It was attacked within the meaning of the terms of the ANZUS treaty, and as a result of that we committed ourselves to action. It is in fact the only time the ANZUS treaty has been invoked, and our troops still operate in Afghanistan under that cover, because the forces that were removed after an appropriate ultimatum had been sent to them in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September are still the forces that we are fighting in Afghanistan.

As I said, our errors have permitted those forces to make a comeback and expand their influence in the region. When the United States acted in 2001, it built up and led one of the great global military coalitions of history. I think there are still some 30 countries engaged in supporting the Afghanistan government now, and I think at different points of time in different ways up to 60 countries have assisted in that process. The US then acted with the support of all its European allies and, I might say, all its Cold War enemies—notably the Chinese and the Russians. It had the support of an overwhelming number of countries in the Middle East, and we were part of the international force that removed the regime in Afghanistan. But the job was not done; it was not properly completed. It has to be said that that marvellous coalition and that empathy that the United States enjoyed around the globe—the sense of horror of the excesses of fundamentalist terror that was so pristine at the time that we engaged in Afghanistan—has become infinitely more complicated since then and our position in the West a great deal more undermined, in no small measure as a result of our own errors and poor understanding of the things that we are dealing with in this region.

The second reason why we need to be in Afghanistan is this: Afghanistan is al-Qaeda central, it is Taliban central and it is terror central. The threat in Afghanistan comes from remnant Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, many of them based across the border in Pakistan. I do say this: if we do not win this war over the next couple of years, we will lose in Afghanistan and we will certainly find ourselves in Afghanistan placed in a position not dissimilar from that in which we now find ourselves in Iraq. The tactics, the strategies, the propaganda—all those things which have been clearly developed by those of our enemies as experienced in their operations in Iraq are now gradually being transited to Taliban and al-Qaeda operations in Afghanistan. Not only did we take our eye off the ball in Afghanistan but the mistaken involvement in Iraq has educated tactically, and enhanced enormously in terms of self-confidence, those who were our initial enemies in Afghanistan.

We have got to be realistic about these things and understand them. We correctly ask young Australians to place their lives on the line. There is an obligation on the politicians who send young men and women into battle to have a clear-eyed view of what it is that they are dealing with and to make sound judgments as to what the priorities should be. It is not simply enough to gloss over these things and to dismiss, with the glib phrase here and there, objection—or to simply state, as though there were some sort of obvious truth behind it, that these things are simplistically settled.

Thirdly we should be there for the reasons outlined by the Prime Minister in the remarks that he made in relation to the economic conditions inside Afghanistan. That poor country has bled for decades. For years it has not been given an opportunity to develop a coherent polity. The bitternesses and differences that exist between different ethnic groups and the different religious orientations have meant that stable central government has been virtually impossible to achieve. It has also been at one point in time one of the Cold War’s cockpits in which the United States, by proxy, struggled with the Soviet Union directly in the affairs of the politics and military activities within that nation. It has never been given a chance.

There are in current aspects of Afghanistani politics some little lights of hope. What the Prime Minister referred to in relation to the involvement of women in the democratic electoral processes in Afghanistan is one of those lights of hope. That they are able to conduct democratic elections at all is one of those little lights of hope in Afghanistan. But a look at the social statistics of Afghanistan—be they in the area of education or be they in the area of normal support for health, power or a decent industrial base—shows they are just not there at all. And the conflict continues and makes it harder to put all that infrastructure in place.

The conflict is also complicated because, at the time when we first engaged, we took on board allies because at that point in time we were unwilling to commit a substantial number of troops—and when I say ‘we’ I mean all those forces engaged, not just Australian ones. Because we did that, we set up and signed deals with other forces in Afghanistan who were not necessarily devoted to the idea of a central democracy emerging in that country—and indeed had a vested interest in some of that drug trade which has become so ubiquitous again in Afghanistan and so deeply undermining of the prospects of economic development, and so deeply undermining of the prospects of a proper and decent outcome to the political circumstances which we are now trying to see created by the actions of our armed forces.

The Afghanistani government and the Afghan people are indirect victims of that error, as I said earlier on, about our engagements in Iraq. We are in a quagmire in Iraq, dragged deeper and deeper into civil and sectarian conflict. That is not just the Labor Party’s view; that is the view now, increasingly, of the American military. Iraq has diminished and distracted the United States. It has sucked the oxygen out of US foreign policy all over the world. The war in Iraq has made Iran stronger, reduced the US capability to deal with Iran and Syria, boosted the status of the arch-criminal Osama bin Laden and made the fight against international terrorist networks far more complex. Far from the heroics of the democracy domino theory—that there would be a democratic revolution across the Middle East—Iraq is now a nation engulfed by violence, not embraced by democracy. So we made serious errors there, and in doing what we are now trying to do in Afghanistan we are trying to correct one of the consequences of those. (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Dr Nelson) adjourned.