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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to rise and make some comments about the joint delegation that had the opportunity to go into theatre to review combat operations within the wider Middle East area of operations, in this case in Afghanistan. It was my third visit into Afghanistan to review the state of combat operations and the state of our engagement within the wider International Security Assistance Force in coalition with the partners of freedom-loving nations across the world.

First of all, let me put on the record my great thanks for the committee's assistance, for those who supported the committee's work and also for the Department of Defence, which facilitated the work of the delegation going in. For those who are unaware of a delegation going into a combat operation, a not insubstantial amount of administrative work is required. There is a special forces protection group of up to 15 people who are there to make sure that anything untoward does not happen to us. That was very kind of them, I must say. It is a significant impost on our special forces personnel. They were taken away from their homes, their families and their wives and children not only for the two-week period while we were in theatre but for the preparation for us to go in and the post work outside. So let me thank the members of the Special Air Service Regiment and the 2nd Commando Regiment based in Holsworthy for their commitment to duty, their support and their work. It was incredibly appreciated. I do not need a man with an M4A1 machine gun 'bombed up' standing outside the bathroom, but I appreciated the gesture anyway. It made me feel incredibly safe within the wider Tarin Kowt fire support base, which was already surrounded by 2,500 soldiers. That gives an indication of the degree of professionalism they have, the support they give and the work they do.

I also thank the government—the Minister for Defence and the wider government—for allowing the committee to go in and do its work to review the state of combat operations and the work of the Australian military force within theatre. We covered everything from Al Mihad, which is a forward staging area, to the work of our administrative and logistics command and support personnel; the joint support unit—all three services right through to Tarin Kowt; the work of our fire support base; our patrol base personnel; our headquarters; our mentoring task force; our provincial reconstruction teams through to KAF, Kandahar Airfield; and the work of our allies right through to IJC, ISAF Joint Command, which is a three-star core level command. Then we went into Kabul to visit a range of Afghan parliamentarians and the Afghan parliament and to commence a dialogue.

To give an understanding of how difficult the environment is, some of the key members of the Afghan parliament, including the Governor of Oruzgan province, have subsequently been killed, having been attacked by insurgents with improvised explosive devices. I think half the parliamentarians we met with, commenced a discussion with and continued a dialogue with have now been killed for service to their country. That shows some of the ongoing challenges of representing their people and building a legitimate democracy.

Speaking on behalf of the delegates who went along—Senator Furner, Dr Jensen, Ms Brodtmann and me—I would like to say not only how much we admired what our fighting men and women are doing but how much we respect what they do. We had the opportunity to leave the fire support base Tarin Kowt and go to the patrol bases in the upper reaches of the Mirabad Valley. It is instructive that, when we got off the helicopters and walked to the forward operating position on top of the hill and went down into the patrol base, we actually walked across the remnants of war. There were machine gun spent rounds by the thousands lying on the ground, spent smoke cartridges and 'link' from Minimi machine guns lying around. The entire scene was out of a battle. When I was there for the second time in theatre, seven or eight months beforehand, the battle for that upper reach of the Mirabad Valley was indeed being fought. It was being fought with fighter aircraft in the air; it was being fought by combat troops on the ground. There is a marvellous story of a young section commander—a young lance corporal—fighting in that battle of the upper reach of the Mirabad Valley. He was under such sustained direct fire that he actually lay down on the ground and played dead to act as a ruse so the enemy fire would lift from him while his mates attracted more fire, allowing him to get up. The reason that he was moving between the patrol base that they were building and the fire support position was resupply for ammunition. He was an incredibly brave young soldier and that is one of the many stories of the battle there in the upper regions.

Here we were, a group of parliamentarians, six, seven, eight months later, walking across that ground quite freely, up to the hill to be briefed by the young captain of the Australian patrol base and then down into the patrol base proper, to get a feel for how they live and the conditions they fight in. Then there was a traditional shura with the Afghani elders and the local people, which 40 or 50 people attended. We met for an hour and a half in the traditional shura, a traditional talking fest, to discuss issues. In that hour and half, not once was the issue of security raised. Within seven months, the mentoring task force had established their patrol base, had gained supremacy on the ground, had destroyed the insurgency in the upper base of the Mirabad Valley and had begun the consultation, the dialogue and the build process in terms of putting in place a situation where there were both economics and security so that people could get on with their lives. Many of the elders had fought the Russians as part of the original mujaheddin and, from their wise and crinkled faces and grey beards, they looked like they had fought the great battles of the mujaheddin. These men spoke of schools and health clinics. They said, 'thank you for the bitumen road' and 'when will the road continue up to the Chora Valley'—which extends past the Mirabad Valley into Baluchi and then extends up to the upper reaches of the Chora. They wanted to know: when could marketplaces be put in place? When are health clinics coming? These men spoke of community and the infrastructure that you and I take for granted that build, enshrine and empower that community. Not once, in 90 minutes, did they actually talk national security, about feeling safe, about being threatened by a Taliban. They spoke of alternative crops—in terms of cash crops, in terms of wheat and almonds—to the crops that the Taliban are forcing them to grow, such as narcotics and poppy. But not once did they mention national security. I think that is instructive of the value of the mentoring task force and the hard work that our men and women are doing on the ground.

It was great to see a whole range of areas within Tarin Kowt—not just the mentoring task force but also the provincial reconstruction team led by a civilian out of AusAID. He is a tremendous man. Incidentally, when we actually went out to the patrol base in the upper reaches of the Mirabad Valley, he went off to look at a bridge. Such was the security situation, where he could go and look at a bridge to be built as part of the provincial reconstruction team. One hundred and eighty-nine people were in that reconstruction team at that time. Once you are safe, once security is assured, communities can move on. They can establish their sense of economics. They can establish their sense of infrastructure. Provincial reconstruction teams and other donor nations like AusAID can get out and build into that infrastructure.

It is interesting to reflect that, upon our return, the bitumen road up to the extents of the Chora Valley has now been finished. Almost within a week, two or three of that road being finished, the price of palm oil—normally seven times the cost in the Chora Valley compared to Tarin Kowt—had instantly reduced to one and a half times. Because you could drive up the road, up to the Chora Valley. We in Australia might take that for granted, but let us not forget that the average person in Afghan society or the average Afghan family might not, in their entire life, move more than three kilometres away from their village. Ever. It has been that way for thousands and thousands of years. The level of infrastructure that is being put in place is empowering communities to do a lot more in terms of their lives. We also had time to work and look at what the headquarters was doing. The headquarter elements. We visited the men and women of the special operations task force—SATG or task group—to look at what they were doing in terms of their kinetic operations in dismantling, disrupting the enemy insurgency—and especially the IED and the bomb making components. We looked at the unmanned aerial vehicle side of things, we looked at the Heron detachment, where Heron was going and what it is doing, and of course Scan Eagle now in Tarin Kowt has been replaced by the new Shadow system. I am looking forward to seeing how that works. It was my great pleasure to travel with the member for Canberra and to be on the rifle range with her. I say you shot very well, ma'am, to your great credit. I know the member for Canberra had an opportunity to speak to a number of the women who in their time off, which I think is one of the greatest misnomers of combat operations but in the eight hours when they are not working in a day, actually go into the township of Tarin Kowt and surrounding areas to connect with other women. In a time when you would want to sit back and perhaps do nothing but rest and get a little control of your environment, call home, write some letters, read letters from home, these women were going out to connect with Afghani women as part of how they could build a society. That is incredibly impressive. It can be a dangerous place, so all power to those women who are in combat and who are going out and doing some really good stuff.

The time in KAF, Kandahar airfield, was instructive in terms of the higher headquarter elements looking at the wider battle picture. Remember KAF is the busiest airport in the world. There is an aircraft taking off or landing literally every 30 seconds; it is busier than Heathrow. An entire airborne brigade of the 101st Airborne Division is there with hundreds and hundreds of helicopters, let alone the transport aircraft landing, the fighter jets and the unmanned aerial vehicles in the space at the same time. The time in Kabul was at a political level, a higher headquarter corps level command to get a feel for how the operation is going.

I think it is fair to say, and I look forward to the member for Canberra's contribution, that we came away deeply impressed with what our fighting men and women are doing. They are seriously batting well above their weight. Over 150 Australian officers are embedded in all levels, from the ISAF four-star to the IJC three-star corps level to the CTU and patrol base level, embedded at various command levels because of their expertise and their capacity to do a great job across a whole range of different nations. Forty-seven nations coming together is no mean feat in the battle for freedom. Australian officers have a great propensity to move seamlessly across those nations and to act as a glue that pulls a lot of things together. We were deeply impressed with the capacity and capability of our men and women.

I came away encouraged by the equipment at our soldier level. The only comment I was getting from some of our soldiers was, can we make this bit of gear a bit smaller so we can put it here on our gear. I think we are servicing our men and women very well in terms of gear. My first time in theatre many years ago in Afghanistan was 18 kilograms of body armour with nothing else on it. This time I saw the new integrated body armour, the lightweight gear that is being worn, the personal bubbles being used for protection from IEDs. I was greatly encouraged at some of the work especially that Colonel Blaine is doing at Digger Works, which is directly feeding back to soldier on the ground and having a tremendous impact.

The committee was incredibly impressed at our command level, at our soldier level, at our equipment level. We came away very cautiously optimistic. We note the Prime Minister's comments on 16 April this year that she expects President Karzai to announce that within the next 12 to 18 months the transition from MTF training the 4th Afghan national army brigades will be complete and the MTF will come home. She said the PRT but I think she meant the MTF. If that is the case, the Prime Minister has announced that we would be bringing the bulk of our combat forces, except for a few kinetic areas as well as reconstruction and some trainers, home by Christmas 2013. We have always asked that it will be a command judgment and metrics-based withdrawal. There is nothing to indicate that the Prime Minister has not taken such advice and that the announcement is anything other than based upon sound metrics and sound commanders' advice. We take what she has said on face value. As I said to the Minister for Defence this morning, we look forward to reviewing those metrics and getting a chance, as we do as part of our bipartisan support, to sit down with our commanders and get a better feel on the ground. Bipartisanship is not a blank cheque but we certainly support the government 100 per cent.

We thank the government of the day and the minister for his generosity of spirit in allowing the committee full access at every classified level to combat operations. There was nothing that was denied to us, to the minister's credit. The nation was well served by a very strongly bipartisan team going into the theatre to review operations. I thank the House.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this report today by the Defence Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and commend the Member for Fadden for his speech. The member for Fadden, Senator Furner, the member for Tangney and I became quite close during our delegation to Afghanistan. Being the only female on the delegation I can tell you now that my colleagues were incredibly supportive of me. There were a number of professional challenges for me in going on this delegation. This was my first time going to a country that was experiencing conflict, but also there were a number of personal challenges for me, particularly in going to bases. I have been to bases before, but I have never actually stayed on one. We actually stayed on a range of bases in both Dubai and Al Minhad, outside of Dubai, and also in Afghanistan. That may not have posed its normal challenges: I actually got very good accommodation—better accommodation than most of the ADF get. What I found particularly confronting was actually the unisex toilets at Tarin Kowt. That is a legacy of the Dutch. There was an American commander there at the time and his inclination when he first took over the command was to change over the unisex nature of the amenities to dual sex. He thought that most people on the base would prefer that option, but they said they were happy with the Dutch arrangements, so the unisex arrangement was what was on offer. It is quite interesting running across pebbles in a pretty stark environment with a little towel and trying to get showered in this very tight amenity with both men and women there. It was a bit of a personal challenge in that respect, as was knowing that the special forces are outside the door guarding you. So there were a number of personal challenges for me.

As the member for Fadden acknowledged, I also shot for the first time in my life. I did find that quite confronting. The security and safety of the situation was very well managed. The member for Fadden, Senator Furner and the member for Tangney were incredibly supportive of me too knowing that it was my first time but also knowing that I found it quite confronting and really did not want to continue. What I also found confronting was lying down to do the shooting with all these hot bullets and the hot UAE sun skirting all over my body. I did not find that particularly interesting.

The most challenging thing for me was going down to Mirabad Valley, which is a war zone. It had been secured at that stage, but it was still incredibly fractious. I was not sure whether I wanted to go down there, and I did so with the support of the member for Fadden, as well as Senator Furner and the member for Tangney. They encouraged me to go down and experience it, and I am really glad that I did it. I think that in this life we have to stare down some of our demons and our fears. We have to take some risks to realise opportunities and gain more knowledge and experience. This was definitely one of those days. It was, as I said, very confronting to be there. We had to helicopter out. We were being guarded the whole time by the special forces. It was a bit like a Vietnam experience with them hanging out the helicopter while we were flying down to the valley.

It was an incredibly enriching and rewarding experience. Again, my advice to everyone is to take some risks in your life because you will enhance your life experience. We met with the elders of the community, and there were some younger men there too. We met with the senior citizens in this community—all men, of course. There was only the one other woman, a woman from AusAID. It was just absolutely fascinating to hear first-hand what their experiences have been in terms of us securing that environment in that valley and learning from them about how important it is to have a secure environment, particularly for their agriculture, their business and their farming, and how appreciative they were of the ADF being there and securing the valley for them.

What I also found particularly heartening was that there was this young ADF officer there, probably in his late 20s—I think he actually understood some Farsi; that is the language they speak—who had obviously established this incredibly trusting, warm and deep relationship with the senior citizens in the community. You could see that they held him in awe—he was a bit like a rock star. They hung off every word, particularly the young men. They greatly admired him. I cannot imagine the time he had spent with the people in that valley building up that level of trust, commitment and depth of understanding. In a way, he was incredibly revered. So I think that his departure from that area when he came back from his rotation would have been a real loss and they would have felt it quite deeply. Being a member of this delegation is, I think, probably one of the highlights of my life. I was very glad that I was asked to partake in it. It was in mid-May last year, and we were a bit concerned that we were going there when things were beginning to hot up again, literally and strategically. During my time there I learnt a huge amount. The purpose of the visit was to go to the ADF units and visit the embedded personnel based in the vicinity and the Australian Embassy in Kabul and also conduct a roundtable discussion with the Afghan politicians at their parliament house. These visits were intended to provide us with an opportunity for further understanding of the issues affecting the ADF operations, the progress of our operations in Afghanistan and the governance in Afghanistan. I do believe strongly that we achieved those aims.

Afghanistan has been a topic of much discussion over the past decade and recent events ensure that its position on the national agenda continues to be prominent. In fact, the Minister for Defence today gave an update on Afghanistan, focusing mainly on the detainees, and the member for Fadden also gave a worthwhile response. I would like to pause here to express my sadness at hearing of the recent killing—I think it was in March—of those innocent civilians in southern Afghanistan. It was a truly abhorrent crime and there is no doubt that it makes the challenges for our ADF—and there are plenty of challenges—even more acute.

What our trip to Afghanistan really brought home to me was just how dedicated our Australian troops are. They are extraordinary men and women. They are working towards a common goal, despite the setbacks, the chaos and the carnage. I can say with confidence that this trip gave me a much greater understanding of their role and what we are doing to fight terrorism and to stabilise and secure Afghanistan. I share with the member for Fadden a degree of optimism because we have made progress in Afghanistan in the last 10 years, particularly at the human level.

Now when people ask me why we are in Afghanistan, I no longer only talk about our commitment to the alliance and the need to eliminate terrorists to defend our presence—although I acknowledge that is one of the main reasons—but I also talk about the training centres, the roads, the airfields, the mosques and the girls schools that I heard about that we have built. Six million children now go to school and one-third of them are girls. In 2001 this was around the one million mark and there were no girls at school.

Afghanistan's future stability and security relies as much on its infrastructure and getting the basics in place as it does on strongarming the enemy. Stability and security will not only come from eliminating the presence of terrorism; it will also come from training the military and the local police so that they can defend and protect their own people and their own country—and we are doing great work in that area. It will come from improving roads so that food can get to market and the economy can prosper. It will come from introducing a largely agricultural community to new crops to help get them off the addiction to opiate crops. It will come from training people so that they have the skills to build up their own nation.

Our overall approach—and this was really underscored during the delegation's visit there—needs to be tailored to the vastly different communities that make up Afghanistan. Having lived in India and having worked on the Middle East desk in Foreign Affairs, I have a strong appreciation of the differences between metropolitan and regional and rural communities right throughout that part of the world. But the differences in Afghanistan are incredibly stark. They are deeply tribal and embedded in centuries of history. This is why the challenges need to be tackled province by province and, in some cases, village by village—and they are.

I now want to focus on some of the highlights of the visit. I mentioned the personal challenges that I had to face when I was there. Having not been a scout or a majorly outdoor girl, I have to say that it was challenging doing the unisex toilet. Apart from those personal challenges, we also had the great opportunity to meet with some of the parliamentarians in the Afghan parliament and in Kabul we met with the internationally renowned Fawzia Kofi, who is a bit of a megastar throughout the world, particularly in the States and Canada. She, at that stage, was chairwoman of the Defence and Territorial Affairs Standing Committee. She has a masters in business and management and she is a strong advocate of human rights, particularly of women's and children's rights. She is also from a very politically active family. In our meeting she was incredibly articulate and forthright and she praised our presence in Afghanistan and wanted it to last as long as possible because for her it ensured that women like her were safe. In Uruzghan we met only with men.

I mentioned before about the experience at Mirabad Valley, which was another real highlight, and also army and police in Tarin Kowt. All of them, particularly the very influential Governor Shirzad, praised the international community's work in building the vital infrastructure particularly in waste management and food storage facilities and all those basics that we so take for granted here—and particularly for the women's and children's health centres. Governor Shirzad was also at pains to point out the gains we had made in stability and security in the last 12 months. We are going back to May 2011 now, particularly in the last six months. In recent years the international community, as the member for Fadden has mentioned, has trained tens of thousands of members of the national army, and many of them have been trained by young Australians in the artillery training centre in Kabul. They have built up the Afghan forces; they have essentially doubled them. Meeting these young Australians was incredibly inspirational. They are just young kids, they are only in their 20s. That is what was so extraordinary about meeting so many of these ADF actually on operations, that these are just kids in their 20s dealing with enormous challenges, facing up to enormous challenges and succeeding against those challenges. These guys were just young and cheeky—there were a few women there but mainly men—and yet their youth and their cheekiness in a way belied a maturity and a confidence and a commitment to training the national army. They were extraordinary young people and, again, just a real inspiration. We should be very proud of the ADF.

Our mission in Afghanistan is multifaceted and it is working. Uruzghan now has double the number of patrol bases as a result of the training efforts we have done with the police. We have also got hundreds more tradesmen thanks to our trade training centre. There are many examples at the human level that really affected me. But there was one particular instance that actually brought me to tears and I think it brought the rest of the delegation to tears. We went to an ANA English reading class. Apparently the maximum age for people enrolling in the ANA is 35 years but this particular gentleman that came up to the board to show us his skill was probably about 55 years. He was bearded, gray, painfully thin and deeply lined from the extreme weather experienced in Afghanistan. He had been doing this course for I think it was about six weeks, and he got up and read loudly and clearly and proudly. Six weeks before he could not read. I know we are there for the stability, I know we are there for the security, I know that we are there to fight terrorism, but that to me just underscored that we are also making a huge impact at the human level, and I think that just was a symbol of our achievements in Afghanistan since we have been there.

The member for Fadden also mentioned Kandahar hospital, an extraordinary hospital, incredibly modern and with amazingly dedicated doctors and nurses working there from all over the world. It was doctors and nurses gaining valuable battlefield experience. Again, the value of that battlefield experience was underscored when Gabrielle Giffords, the US politician who was shot in Tucson—unfortunately she has had to retire from politics—was fortunate enough to be wheeled into a hospital where there was a qualified surgeon, Dr Peter Rhee, who had been a military surgeon for 24 years and had treated hundreds and hundreds of battlefield injuries during stints in Afghanistan and Iraq. Without that experience I doubt that that woman's life would have been saved. The personnel there were at pains to say to us that we needed to get that expertise here in Australia.

Debate adjourned.