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

by leave—I rise on behalf of the coalition to address the call of the member for Melbourne, the Deputy Leader of the Greens, that this House calls on the government to set a date for the safe return of Australian troops from Afghanistan. 'Troops home by Christmas' is a common call that we have heard before.

I agree with the member for Melbourne in his first sentences of his address to this House. War is hell. It is a battle of wills. It is the last resort upon the breakdown of diplomatic efforts to achieve national goals in the face of tyranny. It leaves destroyed nations, destroyed souls, broken bodies and broken families. I can think of few graver calls that a Prime Minister and an executive actually make than to send our young men and women to war. Our combat operations in Afghanistan since 2001—noting the hiatus there from 2003 to 2005—have left 38 of our finest killed in battle and over 250 wounded. The impact upon the mental condition and minds of our young soldiers is greater still.

But there is a reason why the prerogative sits with the executive to commit our men and women to war. There is a reason why the government, elected by the people to represent them and govern them in their stead, commits our nation to war. There is a reason why an elected body, which we call the government and which sits to the right of the Speaker on the Treasury benches, commits our nation to war. Only the government has full access to the full intelligence suites, to the full information suites and to the information from our allies and partners. Only they are across the full access of the national intent and the national interest. Only they are across the full capability and calibre of our national power, be it in terms of hard power, in our combat sense, or soft power, in our diplomatic sense. Only the elected government is fully across the relationships at a bilateral and multilateral level and understands the full ramifications and the full costs and is prepared to wear them and be accountable for committing our forces to war. Only the executive bears that heavy load.

It is incumbent upon the parliament, as one of the three separations of powers, to keep the government accountable, to keep the executive accountable, in the prosecution of combat operations. But someone must be accountable and it is not an amorphous parliament; it is a government. It is an elected body of men and women. It is a body that goes to the people and stands trial by the people in a capacity called an election. Only the government wears that policy.

I am surprised, though, that the Greens have brought this up for debate in the House. It is instructive to look at the policy of the Greens when it comes to defence, defence spending and combat operations in general. According to the Greens, climate change is the greatest threat to world peace and security. The last time I looked I had not seen climate change slay too many people! I have not seen climate change run them over with armoured personnel carriers and tanks! I have not seen climate change call in artillery strikes in suburbs in Syria! I have not seen climate change develop nuclear arsenals in defiance of the world, as Iran is doing! Right now, in the Strait of Hormuz, the US Navy has three Nimitz-class carrier battle groups. Three. Literally a third of the US's surface fleet is now within an area 21 nautical miles by 21 nautical miles, in concert with 23 other nations, on a 12-day exercise at the same time as the sabre rattling over Iran's nuclear threat is reaching a level we have not seen. Three nuclear powered Nimitz-class carrier battle groups: one of the greatest concentrations of military armadas we have seen for quite a while. But, hey, climate change is the greatest threat to world peace and security.

Perhaps someone should tell that to the Africans who are being slaughtered by dictatorial regimes every single day. Someone should tell that to Mugabe. 'Hey, you are not a threat to Zimbabwe. You have not reduced your people's standard of living to the lowest level of any country on earth. You have not reduced to 37 the average age that someone lives.' Climate change is the greatest threat to world peace and security.

These are the Greens who believe in no US bases, that Australia should not allow any nuclear ships into our harbours and we should dispense with bilateral defence arrangements and rest solely on multilateral arrangements, especially the United Nations! I sit looking across at my good friend and colleague the member for Eden-Monaro. He and I are the only ones to have served overseas on military operations, and we wear ribbons accordingly. We have both served with the United Nations overseas and we have both found them wanting at certain stages of those deployments.

But the Greens believe the United Nations should have a permanent UN peacekeeping budget. The Greens believe Australia should be funding this permanent US peacekeeping budget so that Australia would never have to deploy troops. The UN could solve all the world's problems. The Greens believe that ANZUS, the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty, one that has been in place for over 60 years, should be dispensed with. The Greens believe that the 41-year-old treaty, the Five Power Defence Arrangements, between Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia should be dispensed with—one of the overarching bilateral security treaties, which exists to provide security assistance to Singapore and Malaysia. The Greens believe that should be dispensed with. The Greens, frankly, believe that we should train ourselves in passive resistance, and that will ensure that we never face any egregious behaviour, and only in an event of national invasion should we concern ourselves with dealing with any existential threat.

I do not know what planet the Greens are on when they call for these motions in the parliament. Their policy settings make it very clear that they do not take national security seriously; they do not take defence of the realm seriously; and they do not take defence of Australia's interests, its lives and liberties overseas, seriously. I wonder how the Greens would deal with a terrorist incident such as a hostage incident overseas. I wonder how the Greens would deal with the occupation of an offshore oil and gas hub. How would the Greens deal with five AusAID workers taken captive by overseas Islamic forces? What would the Greens do? I look across at the member for Eden-Monaro and I know pretty well that my government and his would be looking at every option on the table, including bilateral special forces operations in terms of recovery. The Greens would be sitting around singing Kumbaya hoping that the Islamic forces would somehow wake up to themselves, apologise and send our people home. Perhaps the Greens should simply provide 30 pieces of silver to those forces who seek to do us harm and call it quits and leave the field of battle.

The motion is seriously not worth considering because it is wider than simply setting a date for combat troops to come home. What the Greens are saying is that there is no point committing to the use of force if it is necessary in the national interest. The Greens agenda is blown wide open by looking at their Defence policy. It is freely available on the web. I would encourage all Australians to go to the Greens website—it is greens.org.au—and have a look at it. Satisfy yourself as to whether this party seriously understands the true ramifications of national security and what it means to defend a sovereign nation.

This is a party that actually believes we should have an international ban on making guns. That is great in theory. I look forward to that great biblical time when we beat our swords into ploughshares but, until such time as those who would do us harm and who seek nuclear weapons to destroy those who love freedom lay down their arms, may I suggest that we as a nation will keep a very firm grip upon ours. It is fanciful to think we should be looking at international bans on weapons knowing full well that the forces that would do us harm have no intention of laying down theirs at all. The Greens simply need to wake up and face the world of reality. Yes, at times it is not pleasant. Yes, at times the world we live in is dark and dangerous. Yes, at times government makes difficult decisions. But I would rather an executive awake to the implications of their actions than a Greens government asleep at their fanciful wheel.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion by Mr Bandt, the member for Melbourne, of the Greens that the government set a date for the safe return of our troops from Afghanistan and withdraw precipitately in accordance with such a date does great damage to the credibility of the Greens with respect to security matters. This is the sort of approach to security policy that you might expect in the scribbled writings on a napkin in a cafe but are not serious considerations for those who have to deal with this nation's security.

It always amazes me that some within the Greens—who portray themselves as a progressive party, interested in the rights of women and the right of the developing world to move itself forward and lift itself from poverty, obscurity and ignorance—oftentimes find themselves siding through their misguided approaches with the forces of Islamist extremism and the medieval mindset that often drives these people.

Mr Bandt in his motion refers to the situation of women in Afghanistan. Of course, we do not accept the situation of the women in Afghanistan and want the women in Afghanistan to move forward even further than they have since the international intervention there, but the strides that have been made are enormous. So what is it that the Greens would suggest? Would they suggest that they slide backwards to the position where thousands of Afghan women were used as sex slaves, to the situation where the 70 per cent of teachers in the Afghan education system who were women were thrown out of the education system instantly and overnight, destroying the Afghan education system? Would they seek to send them back to the situation where no Afghan woman was permitted to enter politics, where no Afghan woman was permitted to work? Would they suggest that all of the strides that have been made in relation to the rights of Afghan women be thrown away simply because they have not reached a state of perfection or the advances that we would hope for them to finally achieve?

Let me remind the chamber that even in this country we sometimes are witness to situations in relation to women's rights that mean we have not quite achieved what we would like to have as well. Just recently evidence came to light of a situation in New South Wales of genital mutilations. Just because there are circumstances that may not indicate that women have achieved the state that we would like them to achieve in Afghanistan does not mean that we should abandon the effort and allow them to slide back to a situation which was far worse.

That applies across the board to every aspect of endeavour of our mission in Afghanistan. If you look at the situation in relation to education and the progress that has been made there, it is enormous. Members of the coalition and I have spent time on the ground in Uruzgan province, for example, and witnessed the efforts of our troops in building a girls school and a boys school, the restoration of the mosque and the like.

We then compare and contrast that with the approach of the Taliban to education. Education is the key enemy of the Taliban. Enlightenment is the key enemy of the Taliban. When they overran the Swat Valley in 2009 and came within 100 kilometres of Islamabad, what was the very first thing that the Taliban did in the Swat Valley? It was to blow up 100 schools. These are the people that the Greens will find themselves in alliance with in taking this sort of disreputable approach to the operation.

Mr Bandt criticises the fact that the government of Afghanistan is in negotiations—

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member to refer to other members by their formal titles.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne has referred in his motion to the negotiations between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban. The Taliban and the people that we confront are a very diverse range of actors. Certainly there are discussions, negotiations and engagements taking place. These are on the three principles of: acceptance of the constitution; a disavowal and renunciation of violence; and a separation from al-Qaeda. Within that, there is scope for discussion. Certainly we can divorce certain elements of the opposition that we have confronted over time from those harder core elements that, I believe, we will probably never be able to come to any agreement with. For them, often there is only one solution—and that is a military or kinetic confrontation which may well and truly end up with their deaths. We have to accept that those are the consequences of operations at times when we confront evil.

But the member for Melbourne and many of the Greens would have us believe that there is no progress being made in Afghanistan. As my responsibilities relate to the transition there, I should report that in the course of this year I have had occasion to monitor closely our efforts and the progress that is being made. We are not focused on an end date in Afghanistan; we are focused on an end state, a conditions based approach to the success of our mission and our withdrawal. Our troops are achieving great success in the competencies that they are attaining for the 4th Brigade. There is a clear program of operations that is setting out to achieve a level of security—as they would put it, cutting the grass to a point at which the Afghan security forces can maintain the lawn. That program of building competency and conducting security operations will intersect at point where the Afghan security forces will be able to conduct operations and maintain security under their own steam, under their own responsibility.

At this point, Australian forces will withdraw more into a ready reaction force overwatch role. For example, there was the situation that occurred in relation to the tragic loss of our troops recently in the so-called green on blue incident at patrol base Wahid. Those sorts of opportunities for the insurgents or for any who seek to do our soldiers harm will not arise because we will no longer be in those patrol bases. That day is fast approaching. So why, at this point, would you seek to withdraw or cut short our program of operations when we are so close to achieving the ultimate success, the ultimate states and conditions that we have sought to achieve these long years?

We have seen reference by the member for Melbourne to conditions on the ground, of which he knows nothing. Many times I have tried to get the Greens to participate in programs to go to Afghanistan or in the parliamentary exchange program. The only one to participate, to his credit, has been Senator Ludlam. When you talk about the conditions on the ground, there is reference to the Afghans believing us to be a continuation of occupation forces of the Soviet Union and the like; that is simply not the case.

The most detailed study that has yet been done on the attitudes of the Afghans has been done by The Asia Foundation. I was fortunate to be in Washington to hear a briefing by the President of The Asia Foundation, David Arnold. This is the most extensive survey done, involving thousands and thousands of Afghans in face-to-face interviews. It is instructive to understand their attitudes because it relates to the success of our mission. Eighty-two per cent of respondents in Afghanistan support the government's attempts to address the security situation through negotiation and reconciliation. The levels of sympathy with the motivations of armed opposition groups reached its lowest level in 2011. The support statistic has fallen all the way down to 29 per cent. This is a rapidly declining trend in support for any armed resistance to the government.

The majority of respondents report satisfaction with the availability of most basic services, including education for children, 73 per cent; water for drinking, 70 per cent; the ability to move safely in local areas, 70 per cent; and the availability of clinics and hospitals, 57 per cent. There are obviously still issues that they have raised in relation to unemployment, corruption and those sorts of local issues at municipalities, but their satisfaction with central governance is growing and increasing all the time. They view with great positiveness now the delivery of services such as education and health care by central governance.

Importantly, in relation to the Afghan National Army, 93 per cent of respondents agree that the ANA is honest and fair with the Afghan people compared to eight out of 10 who say the same about the ANP. So we are making significant progress with the Afghan National Army. A similarly high proportion agrees that the ANA is helping to improve the security situation in the country: 87 per cent of respondents. The attitudes of the Afghans themselves are the ones we should take most notice of and they are the people we seek to help.

In relation to the rights of women—something the Greens should be very interested in—support for the principles of gender equality remains high, including equal rights under the law regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion, at 82 per cent; equal educational opportunities for women, 85 per cent; and women being allowed to stand up for their individual rights, 79 per cent.

So progress has been made in the attitudes of the Afghans themselves, which ultimately is going to be the source of long-term sustainability of what we have attempted to achieve. We are committed to making the security effort sustainable based on our investment in the social and economic political aspects of the mission, as all counterinsurgency missions must be. Our $260 million a year for the next four years will underpin that in relation to support for elections, road building, education and the like. Certainly our efforts in relation to the provincial reconstruction team, the taking over command of the combined team in Uruzgan, augers well for the future in terms of the ability of our forces to see a successful transition. Therefore, this motion bears no relevance to the operation and should be dismissed and not supported.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The loss of five Australian soldiers within a 24-hour period—the best of the best, the bravest of the brave—and other recent tragic events have brought into question Western military efforts in Afghanistan. The landlocked country is still very much strife-torn but, it must be said, in a far better state and in a far more peaceful shape than it was in soon after the evil of 9/11.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the deaths of at least eight civilian women in the country's east in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization air strike. A NATO spokesman said the strikes were targeting 40 insurgents, many of whom were killed, and the deaths of the women was a very regrettable accident. The air strike came just hours after four American soldiers were killed in an attack by suspected Afghan police. The latest incident follows the killing of two British soldiers at a checkpoint on Saturday by a man wearing the uniform of local Afghan police. He claimed to be injured. When soldiers went to his aid he started shooting. This is the type of lawlessness that occurred freely and regularly before our brave troops went into Afghanistan. So far this year 51 NATO troops have died in green on blue killings.

At the NATO-International Security Assistance Force summit in May 2012 it was agreed the mission in Afghanistan was on track for a transition by the end of 2014. The coalition has always offered and will continue to offer bipartisan support for our operations in Afghanistan, with the shared resolve that the country never again return to being a safe haven for terrorists. We acknowledge and we honour the sacrifice of the 38 Australians killed in action in Afghanistan and the 240 wounded in action since 2002. Their families, their friends and their comrades are always in our thoughts and in our prayers.

A funeral was held in Perth today to farewell a soldier killed in Afghanistan last month. Lance Corporal Mervyn McDonald was on his sixth tour of Afghanistan, serving with the Special Operations Task Group, when he was killed in a helicopter crash. Today, the 30-year-old was remembered by his commanding officer as a quiet, hardworking, likeable bloke and as one of his regiment's most professional members

The 2nd Commando Regiment's commanding officer spoke of the energy and enthusiasm Lance Corporal McDonald brought to the regiment.

ISAF is made up of 50 contributing nations, including Australia, with a presence of 1,550 troops in Afghanistan. It was agreed that, by mid-2013, the Afghan National Army would take the lead in security. In Uruzgan province, where Australia has responsibility, transition has already begun and this process is expected to take between 12 to 18 months. At its conclusion the majority of Australian troops will be able to return home.

In Uruzgan province we are training and mentoring the Afghan National Army 4th Brigade to assume responsibility for security; building the capacity of the Afghan National Police to assist with civil policing functions; helping to improve the Afghan government's capacity to deliver core services and generate income-earning opportunities for its people; and undertaking operations to disrupt insurgent operations and supply routes utilising the Special Operations Task Group.

The aim of the post-2014 NATO-led mission is to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces, and Australia will continue to contribute trainers to this mission with a focus on the Afghan artillery school and the officer training academy.

The Prime Minister has said there may also be an ongoing need for our Special Forces to remain to contribute towards counterterrorism, a role which would be considered under the right mandate.

The coalition always accepts the advice of the Chief of the Defence Force and the Defence secretary as to when they say the time is right to withdraw our troops. And that time is when the job is done—no sooner.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence get better briefings than the member for Melbourne and the Greens. That is how it should be and must be. We must stay the course and do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. There is an exit strategy. To leave anytime sooner than our arranged withdrawal would be an insult to the 38 soldiers who have lost their lives. It would downplay our role in what, to date, has been a worthwhile mission, despite the awful reality that 38 soldiers, our best and bravest, had their lives so tragically cut short.

I know the Commandant of the Army Recruit Training Centre, Colonel David Hay, has seen the benefits that Australia's involvement in Afghanistan has brought. He spent much of 2010, from January to October, in the Middle East campaign and saw the benefits that the Australian Defence Force presence introduced.

Wagga Wagga and, moreover, Blamey Barracks at Kapooka, is the home of the soldier with every recruit—this year there will be 2,500 of the regular Army going through—training there.

The death, on 29 August, of Sapper James Thomas Martin, one of three Australians killed by a rogue Afghan soldier, hit home hard at Kapooka. Sapper Martin enlisted into the Australian Army on 24 January 2011 and completed recruit training at ARTC at Kapooka in April 2011, where he was allocated to the corps of Royal Australian Engineers. His many Kapooka friends were rocked by Sapper Martin's loss. It brought home to them the awful reality of the war, the finality which can be a soldier's career. But rather than dissuading them from what they train to do, rather than discouraging their resolve to do what their nation asks of them, to do what this parliament asks of them, the recent deaths—five ADF personnel in a 24-hour period just recently—have only determined their resolve to do what they can to bring about peace and stability to a troubled region.

'A lot of us have been there and seen the change,' a Kapooka soldier told me this morning. The change has been positive—in outcomes for women, in the provision of education, in health services and in overall harmony of communities. The Taliban's once feared presence has been pushed out of mainstream society of this landlocked country and deeper and deeper into the mountains. According to the Australian Agency for International Development, AusAID, 'The goal of Australia's development assistance program is to strengthen the capacity of Afghan institutions to govern effectively.'

Since 2001, Australia has provided about $916 million in official development assistance to Afghanistan. A further $201.7 million is provided for in the 2012-13 budget, representing about four per cent of Australia's total official development assistance budget. In May 2012, the Australian government announced it would increase its budget spending to Afghanistan to $250 million per year from 2015-16. According to the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs:

Australia's aid will help Afghanistan expand basic service delivery in health and education, including for women and girls.

Our assistance will also help improve livelihoods in agriculture, promote rural development and help improve governance and public financial management.

The Prime Minister said it was:

... Important for the international community to provide sustained, reliable support to help Afghanistan meet its development challenges and to protect recent gains in areas like health and education.

International development assistance, together with support for security, will help underpin Afghanistan's stability.

On 8 July 2012, the Minister for Foreign Affairs signed a memorandum of understanding on development cooperation with the Afghan finance minister. This memorandum of understanding sets out mutual 'partnership priorities' for Australia to Afghanistan including    security; governance, rule of law and human rights; economic and social development; reduce poverty; ensure sustainable development through a private-sector-led market economy; improve human development indicators; and, make significant progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

We as a nation are doing all we can to help progress in Afghanistan. It is not helped by the Greens. It is not assisted by motions such as this by the member for Melbourne. The Greens' defence policy, if you could call it that, was no doubt put together while weaving baskets, while reading tea leaves and singing Kumbaya. It is fanciful, just like everything this obstructionist party does. This parliament does not need such motions being brought into the chamber. The Greens have no veterans policy, yet they speak of bringing our troops home with honour. They have no national security policy and their line-in-the-sand approach will simply make matters worse.

We need to stay the course for as long as it takes in Afghanistan. There is an exit strategy and I say to the member for Melbourne, forgive me if I treat your motion with disdain because that is what it needs. When you hear something like that coming from the Greens, you just know that it needs to be condemned because the Greens are, as they have shown by this motion, a joke.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems we are approaching unanimity in this chamber with respect to our opposition to this motion—although it could be that the member for Melbourne might have the support of the member for Denison in this debate. But it is pretty clear to me that that is where the support for this motion ends. While I acknowledge that the timing of this motion was completely outside the control of the member for Melbourne, it is very unfortunate that we are debating this motion at a time when families and members of the ADF are mourning the loss of soldiers in Afghanistan.

It is a rather curious motion because it is not all that specific in its terms. It says we should set a date for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan. The member for Melbourne has not been so audacious as to set the date himself. He wants to make the point that we need to bring our troops home, but he wants us, the collective here, who almost unanimously oppose the motion, to set that date for him.

This motion and supporting speech from the member for Melbourne is full of inconsistencies. He wants to glorify the American alliance but talks against it and says that this is only about the alliance. He wants to back our troops but opposes what they are doing in Afghanistan and then, in doing so, hides behind the instructions which have been given to them by the parliament. He wants the parliament to decide when our troops go, but he wants the executive to decide when we bring them home. It is full of inconsistencies. I just read the member for Melbourne's speech at the time of the introduction. It talks very little about when we should come home. It talks a lot about Afghanistan more generally—and we should debate Afghanistan on a regular basis. But it is really lacking in substance in terms of his intention with respect to this motion—and that is his belief that they should come home.

This is populism at its worst because the member for Melbourne is tapping into a sentiment which undermines the commitment of our troops in theatre—the people who are volunteers, following government instruction, doing what they believe is the best thing for their country and its people and indeed the international community. We have had countless debates in this place about our involvement in Afghanistan. We all understand in this place why we are there. I think almost all of us believe it was a worthwhile engagement—not just Australia, not just the United States, but the international community seeking to make the world a safer place, seeking to ensure that Afghanistan does not remain a training ground, a safe haven, a launching pad for those terrorist groups prepared to perpetrate their acts of terror on Australians and others all around the world. That is a pretty good reason to be there. But we cannot let all those who have given their lives in Afghanistan to have given them in vain.

We must remain in Afghanistan until we have completed the task, not just for our own safety, not just for the safety of the international community, but for those Afghans who have backed us in Afghanistan. It is not time to desert them now. People often say to me, 'We can't win in Afghanistan.' What does winning mean? We cannot create Switzerland in the Hindu Kush, but we can create a stable democracy. We can create a government capable of imposing its own rule of law. We can build schools and hospitals. We can give women equal rights. All of those things we have been doing in Afghanistan. No, it will never be perfect. It will not be Switzerland. It will not be Australia. But we can leave there safe in the knowledge that we have trained the Afghan security forces to a point where they are able to enforce their own rule of law. If we leave precipitously before they are ready to do so, all of those lives that have been given might have been given in vain. That would be a very sad mistake. I am very confident, having spoken to many of them in the past, that all those families who have lost people in Afghanistan would be very disappointed with that decision and that outcome.

So let's call a spade a spade: this is a populist motion trying to tap into a minority view in society. I am confident the majority of Australians support our troops and what they are doing in Afghanistan, just like their families do. It is very disappointing, in my view, that the member for Melbourne brings forward such a motion. (Time expired)

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the member for Melbourne's motion which calls on the government to set a date for the safe return of Australian troops from Afghanistan. I welcome the ongoing contribution of all members to the debate about Australia's involvement in Afghanistan, but I do note that the member for Melbourne's motion is fundamentally naive to what the defence community has to say about this issue and naive to Australia's contribution of capacity building and training efforts abroad. No government wants to send their servicemen and women to war. No decision by government to send our troops is taken lightly. It is the responsibility of all members of government—indeed, all members of this House—to make informed decisions.

I have to question just how informed the member for Melbourne's motion is, because if the member for Melbourne had spoken to the troops at the barracks—like Gallipoli Barracks at Enoggera in Ryan—he would know that they want to continue our effort in Afghanistan. They want to see the job through. They want to see the job through in the memory of those who have died, the 38 soldiers we have lost there, our brave men who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. If he had been there himself, like I was privileged to be, with the member for Dickson and our Senate colleagues who went and met with the soldiers in Afghanistan, in Tarin Kot and Kandahar, he would know that our soldiers on the ground believe they are making a difference—and indeed they are making a difference. And they want to see the job through in the true Anzac spirit. They are proud of what they are doing. They are working to achieve a better place for everyone in this world.

As we have heard, one of the big issues there is literacy, with less than 10 per cent of the male population and less than one per cent of the female population who are literate in that country. Literacy is a great enabler, and that is where Australia is doing such a wonderful job in funding schools and education facilities for the Afghanis. Even the members of the Afghan national army want us to stay and get on with the job. To conclude, the coalition will continue to work with the government and all members of the Defence community to ensure that Australia's contribution to the International Security Assistance Force and the people of Afghanistan is something that we will look back on with honour. As the member for Eden-Monaro said, we must not set an end date we must set an end state.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.