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

by leave—Over the last several weeks, we have faced a consular crisis in Egypt that has been highly complex and highly unpredictable. Our first responsibility as a government is to do whatever is possible to maximise the safety of Australians. This is invariably a challenging task given that at any one time we have more than a million Australians abroad. This has been doubly challenging given the fluid state of Egyptian politics.

From midnight Friday, 28 January, and into the early hours of Saturday, 29 January, consular staff were called into Canberra to deal with the rapidly unfolding crisis. DFAT’s Crisis Centre was activated 24 hours later and has operated on a 24-hour-a-day basis since. On 30 January we also raised the level of alert to ‘Do not travel’—I am advised ahead of all of our like-minded consular partners around the world. The government announced the first Qantas charter flight on 31 January. Two Qantas charter flights carrying a total of 294 passengers (30 of whom were foreign nationals) departed on 2 and 4 February. With the support of the Australian government, another 54 Australians and their dependants departed on five Canadian charter flights. The Australian embassy set up five locations to support Australians in Egypt: at the embassy itself, at the Conrad hotel, at the Novotel hotel, at Cairo airport and at Alexandria airport. In all those locations, except at Alexandria airport, we maintained a 24-hour presence for most of the week.

As the security situation deteriorated, the practical problems faced by our consular staff on the ground became more complex, challenging and at times dangerous. Roadblocks set up on the main routes to the airport created safety and security concerns for our staff—including one group of staff who were detained for several hours until the ambassador negotiated their release. These staff were doing their duty—verifying the safety of the route before we dispatched Australian citizens to the airport that day. Back in Canberra, over 300 officers were involved in the government’s response. Our crisis centre took over 4,000 calls and our operators made over 7,500 calls to confirm the safety and welfare of Australians. In Egypt we deployed 45 officials to support our embassy and another 12 to Frankfurt to assist Australians with onward travel.

Several Australian journalists were also detained while covering these events. I spoke twice to the Egyptian foreign minister to convey the government’s strong concerns for the safety of Australian journalists and other foreign journalists and our expectation of all possible assistance from the Egyptian government to ensure their wellbeing. The Australian ambassador also made early and persistent representations to seek the release of the Australian journalists who had been taken into incarceration, and the embassy has remained in close contact since to confirm their ongoing safety and wellbeing.

I would like to pay special tribute to all our public servants and local staff who worked tirelessly around the clock in Canberra and in Egypt, together with our friends in Qantas, to ensure that Australians were evacuated as quickly and safely as possible in an extremely volatile environment. For example, Tricia Martino was our regional consular officer in Dubai and one of the first on the ground in Egypt. She worked for three days straight at Cairo airport, in chaotic conditions without even having time to go back to the embassy to get a change of clothes. Tricia was one of those detained with a group of Australian officials while scoping routes to the airport and held for several hours.

Mahmoud Tawab, a driver at the Australian embassy in Cairo, deployed to the airport for more than a week, despite having to leave his wife and two children, who were restricted to the Cairo suburb of Maadi after curfew. Mahmoud tirelessly delivered food to stranded Australians within the airport premises, within the terminals, and shielded small children and elderly Australians through the at times violent scrum of passengers trying to get onto planes.

Tricia and Mahmoud are just two examples of the outstanding dedication of our staff on the ground in Egypt, under the leadership of our ambassador, Stephanie Shwabsky. I spoke to Stephanie practically every day during the height of the crisis, sometimes several times, and I can confirm to the House that our ambassador represented the absolute best traditions of the Australian diplomatic service in her handling of this crisis.

I personally spoke to a group of Australians who had been evacuated from Egypt. Some were highly traumatised by their experience, and had seen violence first hand; bullets flying and dead bodies on the ground. But they were grateful for the support the Australian Embassy had provided. Joanne Burgess of Epping, who was one of the participants on one of the evacuation flights, described our diplomatic and consular officials in the following words:

I cannot speak too highly of your staff. Each and every one of them deserve not just my personal thanks, but as a nation we can be proud that these people are representing us overseas and here in Australia.

The trauma of dealing with what we saw and experienced in Cairo and other parts of Egypt was so much easier to deal with, because DFAT and Qantas staff had organised and planned for every contingency.

…            …            …

The whole team looked after us so well, it was hard to believe that they don’t do this sort of evacuation more often. The evacuation was carried out professionally, but also with characteristic Aussie humour. … At the Airport, your staff had to deal with many big and small issues, like babies and Egyptian husbands without Australian Immigration visas, unaccompanied minors, young Aussie/Egyptian men being pulled out of the final passport check queue by Egyptian police to check if they had done their military service, before they were allowed to leave the country … all of this, under a growing hostile Egyptian police presence. Your staff were calm cool and determined. Their presence helped and reassured us through those final minutes in Cairo.

…            …            …

It is such a small thing to say thank you to those men and women in Cairo and in Canberra for all they did for us on Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th of February 2011. What they did for us went far beyond just doing their job. They had been working tirelessly around the clock not just for our flight but for the previous flight the day before. They always put our comfort ahead of their own. These are wonderful people … I was never more proud to be an Australian. So my sincere thanks go to each and every one of your DFAT staff and to our Prime Minister. I am so glad to be home ... thank you.

There is a firsthand testimony of the work done by our diplomatic and consular staff on the ground. These were difficult and challenging times; not everything would have gone to plan—not everything could have gone to plan. But I salute our staff and the excellent work that they did on the ground in the face of a crisis.

No-one predicted the scale and duration of this crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians turned to the streets of Egypt’s major cities demanding a more open and transparent society and greater economic opportunity. Late last year, I reiterated that the continuing global democratic deficit represented one of the great global challenges for the decades ahead. This deficit is particularly evident across the Middle East. Democratic transformation through properly elected democratic forces is also the best long-term underpinning of security and stability.

I have spoken to the foreign minister of Egypt several times during this crisis, most recently on Tuesday. I have also spoken to the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. I have said that the Australian government’s position is that fundamental political reform in Egypt must begin now; that this should be achieved peacefully, that the security forces must refrain from violence, that the rights of people to protest must be protected, that the rights of journalists must be protected and that this expectation is shared by our friends and allies across the international community.

In the course of the last week, I have also discussed the wider ramifications of the crisis with the Quartet representative to the Middle East and former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, the EU’s Special Representative, Catherine Ashton, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other foreign ministers attending the Munich Security Conference last weekend when the future of the Middle East was a primary subject of discussion.

The political situation in Egypt remains volatile. The political situation across the wider region is also fluid. This includes the current impasse in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The external strategic environment surrounding these negotiations is changing. It is in our view increasingly imperative that these negotiations be brought to a successful conclusion. We believe this course of action would best support the long-term security of the state of Israel, as the security of Israel remains of deep concern to the Australian government. It also would provide for an independent Palestinian state and the opportunity for stability and economic growth for the Palestinian people.

The Australian government will continue to support democratic transformation both in the Arab world and beyond. Australia holds democracy to be a universal value and a right of all peoples. And the promotion of democracy remains an important part of this country’s foreign policy objectives into the future.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Curtin speaking for a period not exceeding eight minutes.

Question agreed to.

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

The world has watched developments in some countries of the Middle East and North Africa over the last few weeks with a mix of trepidation and guarded hope for the future. Ruled by authoritarian regimes, typically with close links to the military, many of these nations have been relatively stable for years—decades in some cases. That stability has come at a cost based on the oppression of opposition parties and individuals and a suppression of people’s desire for greater freedom.

It is often said that the nation of Egypt is pivotal, as the Arab world’s most populous nation, with more than 78 million people. While estimates vary, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital, Cairo, and other cities 17 days ago, demanding greater freedom and the resignation of President Mubarak. The situation quickly descended into running street battles between the police and the protesters. Concerns were raised for the estimated 700 Australians registered to be in Egypt at that time although it was believed that the real number could be several thousand more, including dual nationals.

I commend the efforts of our consular officials, who must have been overwhelmed by calls for assistance. Their work was further hampered by the decision of the regime to shut down communication networks in their attempts to prevent the growth and momentum of the protests. The Australian government responded to the crisis with increased staff. However, while the international airports remained operational, commercial flights were heavily disrupted.

I know that members of our parliament were contacted by Australians in Egypt and, from my experience, both the office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did all they could to assist. Two Qantas charter flights were arranged which evacuated more than 350 Australians. One of these flights carried an Australian woman who contacted my office via friends in Australia. I spoke to a very emotional Roseanne at 4 am Egypt time and reassured her that every effort was being made to ensure her safe return to Australia. I maintained contact with her over the following few days. I put on the record that when her case was brought to the attention of the office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs it was quickly resolved. I am pleased to report that she arrived home safely and I thank the foreign minister for his personal interest in that matter as well as many others—there were a number of similar instances. We hope and trust that all Australians are now safe from harm or, if they have chosen to remain in Egypt, are taking all necessary precautions for their safety. I acknowledge again the efforts of our diplomatic and consular officials in responding to the needs of Australian citizens at this time.

It has been widely reported that the Egyptian protests were instigated by the recent overthrow of the Tunisian government and that has been seen as the impetus for change in other nations. The Tunisian protests were sparked by the death of a young man who, forced to sell fruit on the street, set himself alight when his produce was confiscated. To put the Egyptian crisis in context, it is fair to assume that economic hardship and poor employment prospects, coupled with corruption under oppressive regimes that suppressed basic freedoms, are at the core of many of the grievances not only in Tunisia but also in Jordan, Yemen and Egypt, leading to calls for significant economic and democratic reform.

While the motivation for the protests is deeply complex, varying from nation to nation and often without apparent and visible leadership, the increasing cost of living is undoubtedly adding fuel to the anti-government fires. While food inflation and global food prices are not the underlying cause, they have been a potent trigger. There are parallels to the unrest with the food riots in 2007-08 that threatened the stability of government and societies in numerous countries around the world. At that time, record high food prices were described by World Vision’s Tim Costello as an ‘apocalyptic warning’ about food security. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s global food index recently passed the record levels of 2008 with the price of cereals increasing by almost 40 per cent last year and cooking oils up by 55 per cent. The FAO is warning governments against any action that could make the situation worse, such as stockpiling. However, this call is unlikely to be heeded by governments under massive pressure from protesters, and we have seen and read reports of Egyptians struggling to pay for basic food items.

It is with great sadness that we have read reports of deaths and injuries among the Egyptian people who have taken to the streets to have their voices heard. The protests have gone through distinct phases with a period of calm following the initial clashes with police and security forces. There were fears of the nation falling into chaos after the police were overwhelmed by the protests and they effectively abandoned their posts. This was followed by the deployment of the army, which was welcomed by the protesters. Fears of a massacre were raised after the pro-Mubarak forces appeared to launch attacks on the protesters and at times sustained gunfire could be heard. The army was criticised for not preventing this conflict and it moved to keep the two sides apart, thus restoring a semblance of relative calm. The army remains the critical player in the eventual resolution of the impasse.

The key demand of the protesters is that President Mubarak resigns from his office. Mubarak has offered up numerous concessions, including the appointment of a deputy president for the time, and he has appointed a new government. His vice-president has reportedly held talks with opposition figures, including representatives from the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Many people around the world are hoping that Egypt can manage the peaceful transition to a new, more open government that provides its citizens with a genuine say in the running of their country. There are also great concerns that Egypt could follow the path of Iran, where a peaceful uprising against an authoritarian regime was quickly overwhelmed by radical Islamists, and that is why most attention rests on the Muslim Brotherhood. While it is generally accepted that the brotherhood represents only about 20 or 30 per cent of the population, it has managed to survive decades of repression by the Mubarak regime. This makes it by far the most organised and best equipped organisation to fill any vacuum in power. The respected US analyst organisation StratFor published a report on 5 February that ended with the following words:

…the MB—an enormously patient organization—senses its time finally may have come.

The world watches for an outcome in Egypt with anticipation and with some trepidation, but we hope that it will be a peaceful transition to a more open and democratic government with a better outcome for the people of Egypt.