Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the motion to take note of the ministerial statement on Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan. In many ways I feel poorly qualified to speak on the subject of our involvement in the war in Afghanistan. I have not been to Afghanistan. My only family connection with the Defence Force was a paternal grandfather who served in the Middle East in the First World War. But I live close to the Enoggera Army barracks and have been very involved in supporting that group. I have family friends who have sons and fathers in Afghanistan or who have served there at least once if not more since we became involved in the conflict.

I have recently, in the past two years, become involved with a very, very worthwhile group called the Military Brotherhood, a motorcycle club based in South-East Queensland, that supports former soldiers, police and UN peacekeepers who have been psychologically damaged or hurt in some way by the wars in which they have been involved. It was my honour to speak yesterday, on United Nations Day, at a function which the Military Brotherhood hosted at Canungra, near the Army base there. The Military Brotherhood asked me to speak on the subject of dedication, and I was delighted to do so. What came out of their thinking and my thinking on the topic of dedication was the need for sacrifice when you are being dedicated. I can think of no better reason to claim a right to speak tonight than to represent those people and, in the words of David Burchell, from the Australian, to say:

It would be hard to imagine a simpler or more self-evidently good cause than Afghanistan.

Yesterday during the service in Canungra, former sergeant Joseph Kocka spoke about his service. He is a Vietnam and Iraq veteran. He was 19 years old when he went to Vietnam. He was older, wiser and, he says, ‘believed more in humanity’ when he went to Cyprus in 1997. I would like to quote a little from his speech. He talked about how far we as a global family have progressed in the period that he was speaking about. He said:

The two operations I mentioned began around the same time, in the early 1960s. In South Vietnam we were there to assist in establishing a government which would then look after its people. In Cyprus we were there to help all the people, and in so doing bring them good government.

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Our efforts in South Vietnam came to nought in 1975 and it was all over. At that same time in Cyprus an invasion occurred by one of the external forces and the UN stepped into the breach. It resulted in a lasting but fragile peace which continues to this day.

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What is particularly significant between the two operations is that one finished and the other is ongoing.

He made the point and the contrast that, unlike the Vietnam war, the Cyprus conflict had been managed by the United Nations, by a group with international approval to undertake the work that they were undertaking.

Such is the case, of course, in Afghanistan. We have already heard quite a bit about the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO-led force, which was yet again endorsed for its work in Afghanistan by the United Nations Security Council on 13 October this year. So there we have a group of allies, an alliance. Earlier today, Senator Abetz mentioned that, out of that group, there are a number of countries that have supported and are signatories to the ISAF but are currently not contributing. I thought it was interesting to look at the 47 countries that currently have troops—these figures are from August this year—in Afghanistan. There are, in fact, 16 countries that have more than 500 troops deployed there. I would like to read out that list, because I think we too often simply talk about Australia, the UK and the USA—and all of Australia has talked about the Netherlands and their past involvement with us. The countries that have more than 500 troops in Afghanistan as at 6 August this year were Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Other contributions go from three up to 400 or more people. This is not an alliance of the US lackeys, as some people would have you believe; this is a genuine alliance of NATO countries which is supported properly and firmly by the United Nations.

In my view, we must continue until we perceive that we have developed some success in this area. Senator Abetz talked earlier about the fact that we must continue with our nation-building efforts in Afghanistan as well as our troop efforts—it is not just about the fight; it is about rebuilding the country of Afghanistan—and the fact that we have developed 11 health centres and that well over 150 health posts have been refurbished with the involvement of Australia and Australian troops. Senator Abetz also mentioned the fact that we need to be thinking about mentoring staff to assist in building the social capital and the resources for Afghanistan to run its own democracy, to run its own, fair, free society. I certainly hope that our government will support that when the meeting in Portugal happens next year. I note that Michelle Grattan, in the Age this month, commented on Prime Minister Gillard sounding muddled and uncertain when pressed for details about the likely form of any sort of long-term commitment in Afghanistan, and I quote:

More tellingly, she floundered when dealing with questions about the negotiations under way between the Karzai government and Taliban figures. This appeared to be a sign of her inexperience and probably her political caution in the area.

We need experience and we need to proceed with caution but with honour in this area, and it would be good if, at the Portugal meeting, this government would encourage the countries that currently do not provide human resources into Afghanistan to offer mentoring staff to assist organisations and companies so that they can take on the roles that have been left vacant in this current situation and because of the Taliban regime.

Twenty-one Australian personnel have died in Afghanistan. The community, their families, their friends and their ADF colleagues have all mourned those 21 people. It has been said that we must stay there to honour their memories. It would seem to me that, yes, we must stay there to finish the job that we have started. That is the best way, in my view, to honour their memories. There is no point in staying there if we do not think that what we currently have is an honourable fight to have. I think it is. I hope that this parliament agrees.

One of the things we need to keep in mind is how different this war is from some others. It is what is now referred to as ‘irregular warfare’ within the ADF. The majority of our troops were killed or injured by bombs and booby traps—by IEDs—and not by being shot at during battle. This is what is referred to as a ‘dirty war’. It is, however, an honourable cause, and we must continue to support our troops. I know we currently have troops who are on their third tour of duty of Afghanistan. We must be very careful that we do not exhaust our fighting people in that way. We must ensure that we give them the resources that they need; we must ensure that we have a large enough army to sustain the type of involvement that we currently have. We must keep in mind too, I think, some of the cultural issues. I am told that Afghani forces often go, I guess, AWOL. It is not a case of desertion; it is because of tribal necessities and loyalties that they leave to attend functions in their home places and then come back later. We need to think about how this is going to be the sort of army that can work in a country.

The Taliban move freely throughout Afghanistan and throughout Pakistan, and we need to reach the situation where we have the total and ongoing support of the Afghani population. Numerous anecdotes have been told about the Afghani population supporting our troops to oust the Taliban and other terrorist organisations in their areas. We need to consider this issue very closely as we move from the troop and battle situation to the support and social development side of the war in Afghanistan.

I would like to conclude by talking a little about some of the other problems that we need to keep in mind as we make this transition. Senator Abetz earlier today pointed out that more than two million women and girls are now back in school who would not have been there—who possibly would have been killed for being there—under the Taliban . But, at the same time we need to remember that this democracy is rudimentary and fragile. The United Nations released a report on women and peace on 21 October. The point was made during the launch of the report:

Women still face obstacles to engagement at all stages of the peace process.

Sexual violence remains an all-too-common tactic of war and often continues well after the guns fall silent.

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Advancing the cause of women, peace and security must be integral to our peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding efforts, not an afterthought.

I found fascinating a report by Muhammad Qayoumi in a newsletter produced by the Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan in Australia. Muhammad Qayoumi lived in Kabul in the fifties and sixties, before migrating to Australia. He challenges the view that Afghanistan has been ‘a broken 13th-century country’. He says:

... that is not the Afghanistan I remember. I grew up in trouble in the 1950s and ’60s. When I was in middle school, I remember that on one visit to a city market, I bought a photo book about the country published by Afghanistan’s planning ministry.

He includes photos from this book, another copy of which he has recently obtained. In it you see men and women working side by side. You see a male librarian serving two women, both of whom are wearing knee-length skirts and high heels. The photo could have been taken in any Australian library of the 1950s. Muhammad Qayoumi goes on to say:

A half-century ago, Afghan women pursued careers in medicine; men and women mingled casually at movie theatres and university campuses in Kabul; factories in the suburbs churned out textiles and other goods. There was a tradition of law and order, and a government capable of undertaking large national infrastructure projects, like building hydro power stations and roads, albeit with outside help. Ordinary people had a sense of hope, a belief that education could open opportunities for all, a conviction about a bright future lay ahead. All that has been destroyed by three decades of war, but it was real.

The Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan in Australia expresses some genuine fears that the Taliban are not the only people that the women of Afghanistan have reason to fear. They point out that some of the former warlords who now represent the government have the same misogynist attitudes as the Taliban had—for example, young girls trying to flee marriages to much older men have been brought back and flogged and, in one case, killed. This is not a regime that we want to support. This is not a regime that is honourable or a regime that we can fight for. So part of the solution to Afghanistan must be to ensure that the new government—the new regime and the new view of Afghanistan—includes fairness, democracy and equal opportunity. As David Burchell said:

There is scarcely another country on earth where human dignity has been so deliberately and disgracefully trampled upon, or where the progress of one-half of humankind, probably the most signal advance of the past two centuries, has been more casually routed.

We must ensure, as we have done up to now, that we behave honourably, that the solution is honourable and that it is fair to all Afghanis, men and women.