Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. Will the minister update the House on Australia's efforts to bring back Australians and Australian visa holders from Afghanistan?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the honourable member for her question and thank her for the representations she has made to me on behalf of veterans over a long period of time. I also acknowledge that Signaller Sean McCarthy went to Trinity Lutheran College in the member's electorate of Moncrieff. He was one of the 41 names I read earlier—one of those heroes, one of those names that will be etched in our nation's memory and consciousness forever and to whom we owe a great deal. Along with 39,000 other men and women of the Australian Defence Force, they have served our country with great distinction. They have brought to the country of Afghanistan the opportunity for a generation, in particular of young girls and women, to be educated, to be treated decently and to be provided with a future.

I want to, again, commend the efforts of the Australian Defence Force personnel, the members of the contingent there, which includes the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and also the Department of Home Affairs and other agencies who have a presence in Kabul at the moment. We have put in place over recent months a lot of planning and have actioned outcomes, which have seen us repatriate back to our country, from April of this year, over 400 of those people that have supported us in our endeavours in Afghanistan. Mr Speaker, as you know, we took a decision, to close our embassy in May of this year, again, ahead of many other countries. We took the security advice and we made a prudent decision that was in the best interest, based on national security.

The work that is underway at the moment by some 250 ADF deployed personnel to support the operation includes five aircraft: two C-130s, two C-17s and a midair refueller, the KC-30. We have an incredible relationship with our coalition partners, in particular the United Kingdom and the United States, with whom we've been working very closely and on whom we have relied intimately—and, similarly, them on us. I'm very grateful for that support and for the fact that we, as a country, have had an incredibly proud record over the last eight years of bringing out 1,900 locally engaged employees and their family members, and, as I said, 430 since April. That is more than many other countries have committed to over that eight-year period. Indeed, over that period we have settled or issued visas for 8½ thousand Afghans to call Australia home, and we are a better country for their presence.

Our efforts will continue, and we're very grateful, in particular, for the efforts of the Australian Defence Force personnel in Kabul.