Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In 1915 Afghanistan, according to history, was working through one of its all too rare periods of peace. At the same time a group of women moved to Europe to make a statement about the need for peace in a war that was raging across that part of the known world at the time. Those women were not, as some people claimed, dangerous, they were not difficult and they were not mentally deranged. However, they were strong, concerned and questioning the future of war. Those women formed the basis of an organisation called the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which is still active and strong in our community now. Their cause was the need for political and negotiated solutions to international conflicts, the promotion of women, the safety of women and children in any war-torn area and the need to look at ways of working together to form a peaceful solution.

One of the key aspects of the discussion we are having in this place at the moment must be to ensure that people who ask questions and people who are concerned are not seen as being disloyal and are not seen as being in some way treasonous. We have, as Senator Payne talked about, the right to speak freely, to have these discussions and to ensure that people feel engaged with the process. Many people in our country now are strongly interested and concerned about what we are doing in Afghanistan, and they have the right to know. In fact, one of the things we need to rebuild around this whole discussion is the fact that people want to know what our reasons are for taking action, what our plans are for the future and how we are looking after the people who are serving our country in overseas placements. That is their right.

Another key aspect must be that questioning what is going on is not in any way being disloyal or nonsupportive of the personnel of our armed forces. There tended to be a bit of a gut reaction in this place only a few years ago, just after I came here, when we were talking about our engagement in Iraq. Any questioning or concerns raised were determined to be somehow disloyal. It built up, as we have heard a little bit in the discussions today, some kind of divide between respect and support for our personnel—the people who are doing the job that they chose to do to protect our country—and interest in what is going on and the future of what our deployment will be.

Certainly I do not pretend in any way to understand what it is like to be a member of the armed forces. What I do know when I talk to people who have made such a strong and clear decision to serve our country and their families—because we are talking about a family commitment in so many ways—is that they have chosen a job and they want to be well trained. They understand that they act at the direction of the government and they expect that their country will support them while they are doing their job and when they come home. I do not think there is anyone in this parliament who disagrees with that. We have heard protestations both in the other place and here about how concerned we are. That is important because our personnel need to hear that message consistently. They need to know that, no matter how people feel about decisions about war, once a decision is made that Australian troops will be serving they have the absolute support of the people in this place—and there is no doubt that they do.

We have in our community much more awareness and knowledge of what is going on in the world than we had in the past. Governments in this Australian parliament have for generations been making decisions about military deployment. Very rarely, only really in the depths of World War II, has there been an immediate threat to the Australian border. If there was a threat of invasion to our country, we can understand the reaction for the defence of our country. All we have to do is walk through any Australian town and see those incredibly confronting war memorials to realise in how many fields of battle and in how many countries Australian servicepeople have done their job.

Australian governments have been making that decision, and I believe that every Australian government of whatever flavour has taken the decision extremely strongly, understanding the full import of what they are doing. But I think that Australians in the community now, particularly because of the immediacy of the media worldwide, have more information about what is going on—and it is not all accurate information. One of the problems is that, with the availability of a wide range of media, sometimes you do not get absolutely accurate stories, and that is something we should consider very seriously. It is important that people in Australia who follow what is going on in a number of places including Afghanistan understand that when they question things they need to question the media reports. Nonetheless, we can see in our living rooms, in our bedrooms—wherever we have TV sets—the absolute horror of war, and it is a horror, because people are being killed.

Senator Payne referred to having the opportunity of visiting a number of places. War is not a good place to be and the victims of war cover so many areas. They cover women, children and families. The displacement numbers across the world now are too confronting for people to truly understand. Also, the statistics are not well kept. They are kept much better now than they have been in the past, but the figures from Human Rights Watch about the number of Afghani citizens who have been killed just in the latest conflict in Afghanistan, since 2000, show numbers around 7,000. We all know that is not right. We all know that many more people have been killed or wounded, have had their lives disrupted or have lost their homes or livelihoods. Nonetheless, every single person is a victim of the process, and our military engagement in that process is focused on ensuring that there is peace. That is why we are there. We have heard many people restate that the background to the decision to go to war in Afghanistan is for security reasons, to stop terrorism, but the final outcome must be to secure a peaceful world in Afghanistan for the people who live there. There is not enough time to talk about the evil and the horror of what has gone on in that country because of the Taliban and because of years of engagement in war in that place. It would be difficult to find a single family in Afghanistan who can remember peace, let alone understand what it is like—let alone to plan, hopefully, for the future, a future where there will be peace in the area. But that is part of our job.

In terms of what will happen in the future, one of the reasons that Australia is working so hard in Afghanistan is to ensure that there will be an understanding of peace in that country and that there will be education for all Afghanis. Certainly we know that circumstances in that area have been particularly horrific for women and girls. We have heard a number of senators talk about the statistics that we have about the changes that have happened only in the last few years in access to education in areas where it was never available before. We know that Australian aid agencies have been working in the area for many years looking particularly at the areas of health and education but responding specifically to the poverty that is entrenched in the Afghani countryside. It is very difficult to have a sustainable economy and a future when there have been so many years of conflict and war. But that certainly will be the future for Australia’s engagement in the area, because our military engagement in Afghanistan will end at some time.

When you look at the history of Australian deployment in every war in which we have been involved, there will be an end to our military engagement. But that will not be the end of Australia’s engagement. As Senator Payne said, a number of aid agencies that have been working actively in that area have been in contact with parliamentarians in this place, looking at the way forward and where we need to go in that area. Our commitment, as I said, is to an ongoing peace to ensure that the Afghani nation can actually have their own government, their own services, their own security and their own infrastructure, and what we need as an Australian community is to understand that. What we also need to have is an understanding that the government will be open and will give regular information to the community about what is going on.

I know that the Prime Minister has agreed that there will be a debate in this place on a regular basis about updating what is happening in Afghanistan, and I think that is important, because one of the things that needs to happen is the rebuilding of trust. As I said, people have access to the media, and I also think people are thinking more about what is happening in our world. As I have said many times in this place, Australia is part of the global community and we cannot just have our own slice of the world and not be engaged beyond that; that is an impossibility. I think more people in our community are looking at what is happening and weighing up where Australia fits.

There has been an abuse of trust in recent years in terms of the ability of people to have full information—or as much as they can have. I know that when we are in a war situation there are security reasons and issues around personal safety, so full information can never be shared. But we can ensure that what information can be shared is shared. Subsequent information has become available with regard to the Vietnam War and, more recently, the Iraq war, and the media indicate that there was some confusion. There was some inaccuracy in the arguments that were given about a range of countries across the world and the need for engagement in those places, and people are questioning that. I think that interest has been raised by past history.

What we need to do is to rebuild in a certain way an understanding in the wider community about the decisions that government make. We know that Australians respect the role of our military personnel. I think that the public way in which the lives of the soldiers who have been lost is remembered and their lives celebrated through the media and through local community involvement, sends a particularly clear message to the Australian community. We share the loss when we give our condolences and our sympathy absolutely to the families involved. Through media involvement as well we see not just the Australian loss but also the return to America and to the UK of soldiers who have been lost in the conflict.

We also see—and I mentioned this earlier—the horrific loss of civilians, and I think that there is a wider understanding of that than there has been in the past. So my hope is that we will continue to have this engagement with the community, reinforcing the decisions of government and the respect for the work of the personnel who are fighting in very dangerous circumstances.

I opened up my contribution by talking about the women who went to The Hague in 1915 from all around the world to talk about the need for the engagement and empowerment of women and about a way of working towards a peaceful solution in the midst of a horrific war—the largest war that had been known by the world until that time. Earlier this year, a group of women from Afghanistan went to an international meeting in London which was looking at the future of what was going on in Afghanistan. Originally they did not have a seat at the table, but through community pressure they got some publicity and they had engagement in an international meeting that was held in January 2010, looking at the future of what was going to happen in Afghanistan in terms of building a peaceful solution. The Afghan women’s civil society was represented at that meeting. I cannot help but see a similarity between the women in 1915 and the women from Afghanistan in 2010.

The communique that came out of that conference, which was a high-level international discussion, responded to the questions and concerns that were raised by those Afghan women and acknowledged that the future of any peaceful solution in Afghanistan had to engage with women’s empowerment. One of the key things that came out of that meeting was an absolute commitment that the Afghan government would continue to pass legislation that protected women’s safety and freedom in the new Afghan state. It also talked about the need to have women engage in future governance in that area, and the wonderful woman to whom Senator Payne referred is one of the leaders in that area.

We know that there will be an end to the war in Afghanistan in some way. What we need to know is how the peaceful future will be entrenched. We have a commitment from this country to ensure that that will happen. We have already had the commitment in a military way; we need to continue to have the commitment in further aid and development in that country. I have no doubt that that will occur. In terms of the way we move forward, I say that there must be engagement with the community in Australia, and one of the core aspects—and something that I will continue to talk about in this place—is to ensure absolutely that the women of Afghanistan will be involved in the future of Afghanistan and the horrors that we have heard about will no longer be the daily expectation of women and girls in that country.