Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I wish to update the House on Australia’s approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan. My colleague the Minister for Defence updated the Senate on 12 August on the security situation in Afghanistan and on Australian efforts to help bring security and stability to Afghanistan as part of the United Nations mandated International Security Assistance Force. The Minister for Defence and I want in particular to ensure that the parliament and the Australian people are well informed about Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan. Minister Faulkner described Australia’s military role. I will place that highly valued role in the context of Australia’s across-the-board, whole-of-government approach to Afghanistan. I will outline recent enhancements to our civilian and diplomatic engagement in and with Afghanistan. I will also detail the related situation in Pakistan.

The strategic objective which Australia and our partners in the international community are pursuing in Afghanistan is clear: it is to ensure that Islamist extremists and terrorist groups are denied safe haven in Afghanistan so that Afghanistan does not become a breeding ground or hotbed for international terrorists. Failure to achieve this objective would lead to a jihadi state and again allow international terrorists to re-establish themselves in Afghanistan. It would also put intolerable pressure on neighbouring Pakistan.

International terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan poses a grave threat to both those countries, to the region and to the world. Australia is not immune from this threat. More than 100 Australians have been killed in terrorist attacks in recent years in Bali, London, Mumbai, New York and, most recently, Jakarta on 17 July. Many of these attacks were perpetrated by terrorists who trained in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

It is unambiguously in Australia’s national interest to work with the United Nations, Afghanistan, Pakistan and our partners and friends—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and, in particular, the Netherlands, with whom we work closely in Oruzgan province—together with our NATO and ISAF coalition partners, to stare down this threat. To achieve our objective, we continue to play our military role in the United Nations mandated NATO led force in Afghanistan. Our objective, however, can only be achieved through an approach that combines military action with national development and political effort. The pursuit of our objective is built around a number of policy and operational strategies: military, civilian, political and regional engagement.

The Prime Minister announced in April the deployment of additional Australian troops both to support the Afghan elections to be held later this week and to provide training to Afghan security forces. Both sides of the House support that commitment and recognise the excellent work of our troops. Greater recognition, though, needs to be given to the work of our diplomats, aid officials and police officers in very difficult and dangerous circumstances.

The magnitude of the task ahead in Afghanistan should not be underestimated. While the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan are linked, Australia recognises that Pakistan and Afghanistan have their own histories and that the nature and character of each nation is different. Australia both understands and values what is distinctive and special about each country, and has a different policy emphasis towards each. Afghanistan is an extremely poor country with a troubled past. It continues to suffer from violence, poverty and corruption exacerbated by an extensive narcotics industry, which is also funding the insurgency. Australia believes Afghanistan deserves a future in which its people can live in peace and security, with better health services and better educational opportunities for Afghan girls and boys.

Progress is being made. The Afghanistan of today is far removed from Afghanistan under Taliban rule. School enrolment has jumped sixfold. Thirty-five per cent of children at school are girls. Only eight years ago all girls were banned from school under Taliban rule. Under-five mortality has dropped 25 per cent. With international support, Afghanistan has held presidential, parliamentary and provincial council elections. Twenty-seven per cent of seats in Afghanistan’s parliament are held by women. Australian assistance is contributing to these results.

Australia will continue to work closely with the Afghan authorities, the United Nations and the international community to help Afghanistan continue to improve on these fronts. On Thursday this week, 20 August, Afghanistan will hold elections. These are the first Afghan led elections in 30 years. Afghans will be electing a president and 420 provincial council members, including 120 positions reserved for women. This is an important step for Afghanistan’s developing democracy and for a country that was ruled by the brutal Taliban regime until 2001.

Australia is helping to provide extensive international assistance to ensure the elections are as secure and efficient as possible. On the security front, the government has deployed an infantry company, about 120 troops, specifically for election security, and additional military airlift capacity to help provide logistic support during the course of the election. An Australian Army officer, Brigadier Damien Cantwell, is the Chief of the Election Task Force within the Headquarters of the International Security Assistance Task Force. Brigadier Cantwell coordinates security efforts between Afghan authorities and the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, to ensure a comprehensive, synchronised and cooperative approach to security for the elections.

On the civilian side, Australia has provided $9 million in support of the elections, including for voter registration, voter education, public outreach activities and to establish the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission. Australia is also supporting a regional election observer mission. This will see 50 men and women from Asian countries observing the Afghan elections. As well, we have supported the training of 200 female Afghan election observers. We will also have a small team of three Australian civilian observers who will contribute to ensuring the polls are conducted properly. The precise role and placement of the observers will be determined by security at the time.

The Afghan government, UN agencies and ISAF have done much to try to ensure that the elections are credible, secure and with the broad participation of the Afghan people. This has not been easy for a range of reasons, including Afghanistan’s challenging geography, nascent institutions, and a security environment where the Taliban aim to disrupt the elections and prevent ordinary Afghans from exercising their democratic rights.

I am concerned that the days ahead are likely to see a continuing escalation of violence. Afghanistan is a dangerous environment and the election makes it even more so. We should not forget the Taliban have announced they will deliberately target the elections. This was vividly and tragically demonstrated by the Taliban suicide attack in Kabul on Saturday, 15 August in which seven Afghans were killed.

Notwithstanding the challenges, preparations for the elections by all accounts are on track. About 16 million Afghans are enrolled to vote. The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, recently said he has never witnessed such a vibrant political debate in Afghanistan. The Taliban has not been able to suppress this debate, in spite of their efforts to intimidate and terrorise the Afghan people.

The elections are also important in reinforcing the authority of the Afghan government, which strives to present the Afghan people with a better future than that offered by the Taliban. Critical as they are, the elections are only one step in the pursuit of improved circumstances. Irrespective of which candidate or candidates might actually win, the newly elected Afghan government will need to commit to addressing corruption and investing in and building public services and the institutions of state.

Australia is committed to a substantial capacity-building, nation-building, development assistance contribution to Afghanistan. Civilian development efforts are an essential complement to military force in stabilising Afghanistan. These efforts are an essential part of the overall strategy in Afghanistan. Last year, Australia pledged $250 million in civilian development and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan. This brings Australia’s total development assistance commitment to over $600 million since 2001.

The government is increasing the number of AusAID personnel and technical advisers working in Afghanistan to strengthen the capacity of key Afghan ministries. A senior AusAID position will be established in Kabul to lead Australia’s development program. In the coming months, Australia will also provide up to six technical specialists, including to advise the ministries of health, education, agriculture, and rural reconstruction and development. The first of these specialists will commence in September and work with the United Nations and the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture to coordinate international assistance in the agriculture sector. We are also considering establishing an additional small number of positions in southern Afghanistan.

Australia’s development assistance has already contributed to improvements in health, education and community development. Australia’s aid has been put towards Afghan government efforts to build over 800 schools and provide basic health services to about 80 per cent of the population. We have contributed to the rehabilitation of 9,000 kilometres of road nationwide and helped generate over 12 million days of community labour.

Oruzgan province has been the focus of the Australian Defence Force’s mission in Afghanistan. Australia’s civilian development efforts have complemented our military contribution by supporting the rehabilitation of important rural roads and helping to fund wells and irrigation in rural communities in Oruzgan province.

Australia responded positively to last year’s food crisis brought on by serious drought. This included feeding 30,000 needy children in Oruzgan. Australia is also supporting a program that teaches health and hygiene to around 2,000 primary school children in Oruzgan. Our practical efforts are focused on delivering results for the Afghan people at the national and provincial level. We are working with the Afghan government to build its administrative capacity to provide basic services and security for its people.

In parallel with Australian Defence Force efforts to build the capacity of the Afghan National Army so that in time Afghanistan can defend itself, the Australian Federal Police, the AFP, will deploy additional resources to Afghanistan to enhance Afghan National Police capacity, as Home Affairs Minister O’Connor announced this morning. Australian Federal Police officers are also building the capacity of the Afghan police in the areas of criminal investigation and counternarcotics, all vital tasks as we help the Afghan government develop the means to cater for its own internal security.

The conflict in Afghanistan will not be ended by military force alone. At some point in the process, there needs to be a political reconciliation in Afghanistan to ensure that the vast bulk of the Afghan people who want to take part in a political process in a peaceful way are able to do so. Those who do not want to pursue their ideas or ideals through the barrel of a gun must have the full and appropriate opportunity to engage in such a political process without ongoing fear for their security.

These political efforts are not a substitute for the military, construction and capacity-building efforts that the Minister for Defence and I have outlined. On the contrary, if political reconciliation and realignment efforts are to yield fruit, it will be essential to maintain military pressure on hardcore terrorists, while at the same time offering those less committed to such a course the opportunity to renounce violence and accept the Afghan government’s conditions for rapprochement. These conditions continue to be that insurgents respect the Afghan constitution, lay down their arms, and no longer support groups taking part in international terrorism.

To be sustained over the long term, any political settlement in Afghanistan will need to be supported by regional powers, including Afghanistan’s South and Central Asian neighbours. I welcome recent high-level discussions between the Afghan and Pakistani leadership. Pakistan is a strategically important country. It is critically located at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has the second largest Muslim population in the world and on current projections will overtake the larger Muslim population of Indonesia by midcentury. What happens in Pakistan directly affects the security of the region and Australia’s long-term national interests. Since the government came to office, it has increased its engagement with Pakistan. I visited Pakistan in February—the first visit to Pakistan by an Australian foreign minister in over a decade—to enhance bilateral relations and urge decisive action by Pakistan against terrorism and against extremists crossing the border into Afghanistan.

Pakistan faces complex and urgent security, economic, humanitarian and political challenges. The threat of terrorism and extremism has become so severe that even President Zardari himself has now described it as a threat to Pakistan’s very existence. As in Afghanistan, stabilising Pakistan’s border regions must involve a combination of strategies. Pakistani security forces are now turning their attention to South Waziristan and continue to conduct counterinsurgency operations in areas of the North-West Frontier Province in an effort to drive out extremists and terrorists operating in the area. The Pakistan government now faces the long-term task of holding the ground the Army has cleared.

A military solution alone will not solve Pakistan’s fight against terrorists. As my colleague the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Mr Qureshi, says, Pakistan cannot solve its security problems without solving its economic problems as well. It will require a comprehensive approach, fostering economic reform and development, building capacity and improving governance. Australia stands ready to assist Pakistan in this task. It is also vital that the Pakistan government makes every effort to protect the welfare of citizens caught up in the conflict and ensures that international human rights obligations are met.

The conflict in the North-West Frontier Province has displaced more than two million people. Australia welcomes the recent announcement by the Pakistan government that displaced persons are beginning to return to their homes and that over 765,000 registered internally-displaced persons have returned to their places of origin. Up to 33 per cent of displaced populations have returned to the Swat and Buner districts. It will be important that the returnees are helped to rebuild their lives and their communities as quickly as possible. Australia has provided $23 million to help meet the humanitarian needs of these internally displaced people since August 2008. Australia’s contribution has been directed through United Nations agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Food Program and Australian and international nongovernment organisations to meet the immediate needs of adversely affected communities. Australia continues to monitor the situation and will provide further support for humanitarian and reconstruction efforts as appropriate.

Australia condemns unreservedly the recent brutal terrorist attacks in Pakistan. The attack on the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar earlier this year was especially shocking, as it killed innocent Pakistani civilians and United Nations workers helping Pakistanis who had fled fighting in the border areas. This included United Nations workers directly engaged in delivering Australian development assistance to Pakistan over a long period. In recent months, four staff from the UNHCR and UNICEF have been killed in Pakistan. Pakistan has said that this is its war. We look to Pakistan to take the lead in implementing strategies to combat extremism, to promote stability and to foster economic development.

As we urge Pakistan to deal with these challenges in an integrated and comprehensive manner, at the same time Australia stands with the government of Pakistan in its fight against extremism. As a founding member of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan, Australia is working with Pakistan and the international community to ensure a coordinated effort is made to support Pakistan. We are enhancing our defence and law enforcement engagement. We have increased the number of defence training places in Australia for Pakistani personnel from 10 to seventy. Australia is also providing technical assistance and training to Pakistan’s financial intelligence unit to tackle terrorist financing. We are assisting Pakistani police to improve their forensic investigation techniques.

Australia encourages Pakistan’s efforts to address structural economic issues which impact negatively on the people of Pakistan. At the Pakistan Donors Conference in Tokyo in April, I announced that Australia’s aid program to Pakistan would rise to $120 million over the next two financial years, representing a doubling of development assistance in 2008-09. This assistance is focused on the provision of health and education services, including in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

Our aid program also focuses on improving rural livelihoods, strengthening standards of democratic governance and protecting internationally recognised human rights standards. Australia’s support has helped improve food production in the border areas, building better food security and rural livelihoods. We have also contributed to the development of effective agricultural extension programs and integrated crop management practices in the Punjab, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province, which has delivered increased crop yields and better incomes for rural farmers.

Our support for voter education in the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan has improved civil society participation in the electoral process. Other assistance is focussed on promoting democratic governance and strengthening social justice and community participation in 40 districts in all four provinces of Pakistan. This program will build the capacity of local-level community institutions and civil society networks, strengthen the role of women in community development processes and strengthen public-private partnerships for primary education, mainly for girls.

Pakistan remains the first country of refuge for millions of Afghan refugees. Australia has and will continue to provide assistance to help meet the needs of the refugees. Australia and Pakistan are working together to explore avenues to expand trade and investment, particularly in agribusiness and agricultural science linkages.

The government has boosted Australia’s diplomatic resources to deepen our engagement with Afghanistan and Pakistan, our partners, the United Nations and NATO. The appointment of Australia’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Ric Smith, is a demonstration of our commitment to coordinated and effective regional and international diplomacy. Special Envoy Smith was appointed in April to ensure that Australia’s significant commitments are integrated into the broader international effort. Australia’s Special Envoy represented Australia at the G8 Foreign Ministers’ Outreach Meeting and has visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, and reiterated to its leaders Australia’s long-term commitment to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan is underpinned by a UN Security Council mandate and supported on the ground by 42 countries forming the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. I note that ISAF Commander, General Stanley McChrystal, is currently undertaking an assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and that he will report his findings to the US Administration and the NATO Secretary-General when complete.

Australia’s combined military, development, and diplomatic efforts, in partnership with other coalition members, is aimed at denying Afghanistan as a training ground and operating base for terrorist organisations; stabilising Afghanistan; and building the capacity of the Afghan government and security forces to better provide for the welfare and security of the Afghan people.

Australia supports Pakistan in its efforts to overcome its complex security, economic and political challenges. These are complex challenges which directly impact on Australia’s national interests and which the government remains committed to addressing head-on. I thank the House.

I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to speak for 21 minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Deputy Leader of the Opposition speaking in reply to my ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 21 minutes.

Question agreed to.

I apologise in advance to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. An unavoidable commitment means that I cannot stay and listen to her speech, which I would of course normally do.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition welcomes the government’s commitment to a region that is critical for Australia and for the world. The coalition supports strongly the work of Australian military and civilian personnel serving in Afghanistan. It is important that bipartisan support endures for this work because it will require a long-term commitment if the NATO-led mission to Afghanistan is to be successful, which also has major implications for stability within Pakistan—a country with nuclear capability.

In terms of modern warfare, there is a tension between long-term military commitments of democratic nations and the electoral cycle, and the inevitable pressure that builds with ongoing casualties and the often slow rate of progress in terms of necessary nation building during and after the conflict. The task that confronts us in Afghanistan is daunting. After decades of conflict, the nation is desperately poor, with unemployment estimated at approximately 40 per cent. It is estimated that some 50 per cent of Afghanis live at or below the poverty line. While there have been improvements, recent figures still show that fewer than 30 per cent of the total population is literate, while only about 13 per cent of women are regarded as literate. National infrastructure has been severely degraded and large numbers of people live without adequate access to housing, clean water, medical care, food and electricity. There are serious and ongoing concerns about the ability of national institutions to provide adequate governance to the country in terms of economic, social and security considerations. Afghanistan is reported to now account for the vast majority of opium production world wide, and this presents a serious challenge in terms of finding viable alternative crops for many farmers in their communities.

During a recent visit I made to Afghanistan with the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister for defence, I was told that the single, largest source of income to the government of Afghanistan was the flyover fees paid by international airlines. There are very significant structural problems in Afghanistan that simply cannot be redressed by a short- or medium-term commitment from the international community. The scale of the challenges means that we are talking about international involvement of some character over a generation or more.

Education is a critical issue for the region, because the foundations of the current crises in Afghanistan and in Pakistan are to be found in events of the late 1970s and the 1980s and earlier. It is worth recounting a little of this history to gain an insight into the nature of the task ahead. It was during this time that the number of religious schools known as madrasahs greatly increased in number in Pakistan. There were estimated to be fewer than 200 madrasahs in Pakistan in 1950, growing to more than 10,000 by 2001, and it is currently estimated that there are more than 40,000 madrasahs in Pakistan. The Pakistan military are reported to have encouraged the growth in the number of these schools, because many students from Pakistan went on to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

There was a policy of encouraging extremism, which it was believed would act as a bulwark against the Communist ideology of the Soviets, then occupying Afghanistan. This was a successful strategy in that the Soviets were eventually forced to leave Afghanistan in 1989. However, the madrasahs continued to increase in number and continued to influence millions of Pakistanis and Afghanis and to radicalise a significant number of them. These religious schools played a key role in the emergence of the Taliban—which in Pashto means ‘students’. By 1992 the mujaheddin had swept away the last vestiges of Soviet rule and took control of the capital, Kabul. The mujaheddin were not able to agree on power-sharing arrangements and the country was beset by conflict, often verging on civil war.

It was in this unstable environment in Afghanistan that the Taliban became established in Kandahar, in the south of the country. The Taliban were initially supported by many Afghanis, who had tired of the corrupt mujaheddin warlords. However, conflict soon erupted, civil war broke out and the Taliban eventually captured Kabul in 1996. The ascendency of the Taliban raised a number of issues of particular consternation to the Western world, including reliance on increased opium poppy production in Afghanistan, the imposition of harsh sharia law and its impact on women particularly, and the sheltering of Osama bin Laden and his growing al-Qaeda network of terrorists, who trained and planned global terrorist attacks from their base in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

After the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the United States led a coalition into Afghanistan to disrupt the Taliban and destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist network. There were early military successes and the Taliban were soon swept from most of the country. A form of government was established and elections were held. However, the situation became increasingly unstable with the re-emergent Taliban fighting back for control of large swathes of the country. While Afghanistan has been a priority for the Western world since 2001, the gestation period for its troubles has been more than 30 years with a long history of conflict, so we must think in the long term.

Whenever nations have directly intervened in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, the challenge has been for them to maintain the level of commitment required to achieve an outcome that is sustainable and stable in the long term. It is unrealistic to expect relatively quick and easy resolutions to a situation that has been brewing for many years. While military and strategic planners of the international community would undoubtedly be well aware of the lengthy time frames, it is incumbent upon them to keep their citizens informed of the likely length and depth of the necessary commitment.

We in Australia know how the electoral cycle can put enormous strain on the nation’s commitment to sending and maintaining our troops in conflict zones for deployments that must necessarily span multiple elections. Former Leader of the Opposition Mark Latham’s infamous and populist commitment to bringing the troops home from Iraq by Christmas of 2004 and the current Prime Minister’s insistence prior to the last election that the Howard government have a timetable for an exit strategy from Iraq are cases in point. There was little debate or consideration of whether it was in our long-term strategic interest or the interest of the country, the region or the world for troops to be withdrawn. The issue became caught up in the political contest. Similarly, in last year’s United States presidential election the presence of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan became embroiled in the political debate.

Domestic public opinion has long proven to be a strong factor in the commitment of Western nations in particular to international conflicts. Notwithstanding President Obama’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan, according to a recent poll the United States public is rapidly losing enthusiasm for the Afghanistan conflict. In the wake of September 11, public support in the United States was high, with almost 90 per cent of people approving of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Eight years on, that support has plummeted, with 53 per cent of people surveyed saying the United States made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan. This was up from 30 per cent in February this year, yet in January 2002 only six per cent of people surveyed called the war a mistake.

After the success of President Bush’s surge of troops into Iraq, President Obama has replicated the tactic of a surge in Afghanistan and has committed an additional 21,000 troops. Overall, there are more than 100,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan; about two-thirds are American. There is speculation that the new United States commander, General Stanley McChrystal, will request of the Obama administration an even greater commitment of troops after finalising a review of operations in mid-August; however, his review has been postponed to September. Reports from the United States suggest that any such request is likely to have a chilly reception in the congress. This would be based partly on public opinion and the growing number of casualties, which is approaching 800 in the United States alone, but also on the reaction from NATO allies to President Obama’s request for additional troops to support the US surge.

At a NATO summit in April, President Obama gave an impassioned speech in which he asked other NATO countries to send more troops as he outlined the United States’s strategic policy that now includes Pakistan with Afghanistan. His request was largely ignored. The United Kingdom, however, pledged to send several hundred soldiers, in addition to its current commitment of 9,000 troops, to help improve security during the election to be held this week. The additional British troops are to be withdrawn after the election. Only two other countries made any commitment. Belgium committed an additional 35 military trainers, while Spain said it would send 12. During his speech President Obama warned European leaders that any failure to show long-term commitment in Afghanistan would increase the danger of terrorist attacks on their home soil. The then Secretary General of NATO confirmed that public opinion was a key consideration behind the decision of many nations not to send additional troops. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is currently grappling with the NATO request for additional troops, in a week when British casualties have passed the 200 mark.

This poses a serious challenge for the international community because, while the initial intervention enjoyed strong domestic support which encouraged action by leaders, public support can ebb, as can the support of national leaders. There is obvious potential for failure or for poor outcomes from such a cycle. A key challenge for national leaders who have intervened in places such as Afghanistan is convincing their public of the need for long-term commitment to such an intervention. For the countries of the NATO-led forces to realistically achieve the goal of a stable and peaceful society in Afghanistan, the commitment needs to be greater and longer than a temporary military and civilian surge. Ensuring that the Afghan people succeed politically and economically will be essential to the battle against extremism. There needs to be a fundamental reform of the education system to ensure it no longer radicalises young men in particular. There needs to be fundamental reform of the economy so that people can improve their standard of living without resorting to activities such as opium production. These changes are exceedingly difficult to implement at any time and are much more difficult in a country where the Taliban still exert considerable overt and covert influence. It follows logically that nations with troops in Afghanistan must be prepared for the long haul—and it could be a very long haul.

There is a story doing the rounds in Washington that an American soldier wearing a gold watch captured a Taliban fighter, who pointed at the watch and said to the American, ‘You may have the watch, but we have the time.’ This Taliban combatant was, of course, referring to the fact that soldiers from intervening nations, even if equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and resources, are perceived to rarely stay the course in such countries for the many years that it takes to achieve enduring reconstruction and sustainable social stability. During my time in Afghanistan, I was told on a number of occasions that the local people expect the international soldiers to leave. They have no other expectations.

The international community must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of never again allowing Afghanistan to become a base for global terrorism. Nations must not forget about the thousands of men who passed through al-Qaeda’s training camps, many of whom then playing roles in terror attacks around the world. While the situation in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, is difficult, there are some positives. Our troops are making progress in disrupting the Taliban. A necessary element of establishing Afghanistan as a state capable of defending its people and its institutions and of policing its territory is to build an effective national security force. Through a combined international effort, the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police are being trained, equipped and mentored to establish the Afghan national security forces, capable of taking responsibility for the country’s security.

I met with members of Australia’s Operational Mentor and Liaison Team that has been providing vital mentoring and advice to a battalion of the 4th Afghan National Army Brigade. The team partners the battalion as it undertakes security operations. Australia’s Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force is supporting local capacity building through major infrastructure projects, including security, health, education, water and other essential infrastructure. I observed the trade training school run by our Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force in Tarin Kowt, in Oruzgan province, which is an outstanding example of Australia’s supporting local Afghani communities. The four-week courses are recognised by the Afghan government and provide opportunities for skill development and employment amongst local people, particularly among young men who are considered of fighting age. While the current Afghan government has had a number of successes in building its national security force and instituting programs in health and rural development, the Taliban’s chances of success improve if the Afghan government is weak. The new national government must ensure there are honest and effective officials at provincial and local levels and ensure the delivery of basic services. To build and maintain a new and democratic order the presidential elections to be held this week must be secure and free and fair.

Australia’s contribution of an election support force of 120 personnel and additional resources will be necessary to assist the International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan government during the elections. The militants have been more active in recent weeks as they seek to disrupt these elections, showing contempt for the fact that significant sections of the Afghani population have embraced the democratic process with enthusiasm. The majority of the people of Afghanistan are no different to the vast majority of the people of the world: they want to live in peace and safety and to create communities where they can provide adequately for their families in terms of food, education and security. After decades of conflict and suffering these people deserve our support.

I was informed during my visit that an increasing number of Taliban militants are not Afghanis, yet with the support of the international community Afghanis will eventually be able to defend their nation, defend their institutions and defend their communities. However, they will require financial, logistical and military support for many years to come. Australia has made a significant commitment to Afghanistan. In terms of the human cost, we have lost 11 brave Australian soldiers and a number have been wounded. There is also the significant cost to the Australian taxpayer—in 2009-10 alone the budget is more than $1.2 billion. Given the scale and length of this likely commitment, the Rudd government must ensure that it continues to keep the coalition, the parliament and the Australian community fully informed about Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan and developments in Pakistan. As time passes, it will become increasingly important that both sides of politics continue to take the Australian people into their confidence as we continue our commitment to defeating terrorism and supporting democracy.