Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since 2002, there have been 40 operational deaths of Australians in Afghanistan and 261 wounded. The first death was Sergeant Andrew Russell, SAS Regiment, who died on 16 February 2002. The 40th was Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird, VC, MG, 2nd Commando Regiment, who was killed on 22 June 2013. Throughout the Middle East, the photos of these 40 Australians are proudly displayed in each of the Australian headquarters to honour their service and remember their lives.

As part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, I was able to visit the Middle East Area of Operations, or MEAO, with three other parliamentarians—the members for Petrie and Rankin and Senator Dean Smith. It is a valuable way for parliamentarians to witness the work which the young men and women of the ADF are doing on deployment. There are currently 400 ADF personnel deployed within Afghanistan and a further 800 personnel deployed throughout the rest of the Middle East.

Joint Task Force 633 covers all Australians deployed in this theatre. I would like to thank the Commander Major General Craig Orme and his deputies, Commodore Phil Spedding and Air Commodore Noel Derwort, who were so generous with their time in giving us an extended master class over the nine days we were away. I would like to thank Major Will Orgill, who took his role of looking after a group of MPs with good humour. We learnt that the military has its own language and thrives on acronyms. On arrival in the MEAO, we were thrown into a RSOMI course—that is, reception, staging, onward movement and integration for the uninitiated. We learnt how to recognise IEDs. We discovered that KAF was Kandahar airfield and a CAT could be a combat application tourniquet or a coalition advisory team. We could not have got by without FCUs, FSUs and FPUs. We saw surplus MRAPs—that is, mine resistant armour protected vehicles—waiting to be crushed. We heard jargon such as 'kinetic activity' or 'nine-liners' in a medivac. And with the ADF operating in an international coalition environment, we learnt some of the American idiom. 'Loaded for bear' is one phrase I have never heard before and I do not think I will ever forget.

This was a parliamentary program with a difference. We were given briefings on what to do when under small-arms fire or rocket attack and we flew in a Black Hawk over Kandahar province. We were privileged to receive high-level briefings at some of the major coalition headquarters in the Middle East, the combined Air and Space Operations Centre in Qatar and the combined maritime forces HQ in Bahrain. I would like to thank Vice Admiral John Miller, Commander US Naval Forces Central Command, US 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, who spent more than a hour with the group along with his senior staff to talk about the role Australia was playing in the Combined Maritime Forces and the current environment in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean. There are three dozen ships from more than a dozen countries protecting sea lines of communication, with a strong focus on counterpiracy, counterterrorism and preventing drug trafficking. In the space of a month, HMAS Darwin has seized more than two tonnes of heroin in three separate seizures, which help to disrupt terrorist-funding streams.

In Kabul, we were able to meet with senior Australian embedded officers at ISAF HQ and an Australian detachment at the Afghan National Army Officer Academy in Kabul. In Kandahar, we were impressed with the work of Australian led Afghan National Army 205 Corps coalition advisory team and the RAAF Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicle detachment. We also toured the ISAF Role 3 Medical Facility, one of only four in Afghanistan which has a number of Australian medical specialists attached to it. At both Kabul and Kandahar, we got to talk with the deployed Australians over a barbeque and a non-alcoholic beer. As a reminder that military service is dangerous, at Kandahar we attended a memorial service for five British service personnel, who were killed in a helicopter crash.

Some take-home points for me included the closure of the base at Tarin Kowt. The end of the mission in Uruzgan province received wide coverage late last year, yet there are still more than a thousand young Australians serving in the Middle East Area of Operations. They want Australians to know that they are still serving there. They are serving our country in a dangerous environment. There are important decisions to be made regarding our future commitment in Afghanistan. President Obama has announced that the US will cut its commitment from 32,000 to 9,800 by the end of this year and around 5,000 troops by the end of next year. Australia will need to wind back its commitment in a similar way.

It is likely that Australia will have a continuing involvement in the Middle East, but it will not be in Iraq and it will not be in Afghanistan; it will be in the maritime environment providing maritime security. We have been doing this since 1990. The Darwin is the 57th individual RAN ship to be deployed since then and this counterpiracy and trafficking role will continue to be necessary.