Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research (Senator Evans) to a question without notice asked by Senator Milne today relating to Afghanistan.

I find it extraordinary that so little is being said in Australia about the fact that NATO ordered a cutback in operations with Afghan forces in response to a surge of green-on-blue attacks—that is, Afghan soldiers and/or police and security personnel who have turned on the coalition forces.

Overseas people have gone into shock somewhat, and in the House of Commons there has been a rigorous debate about what occurred. It is as a result of that debate that we know, for example, that the British were taken by surprise—and of course Australia was also taken by surprise, although Minister Evans refused to acknowledge that today and say when Australia was told about the change of circumstance in Afghanistan and strategies. We know that Australian senior officials were scrambling to find out and seek urgent clarification on how the change would be applied in Uruzgan province. What we know is that in the House of Commons there is serious embarrassment. In fact the Minister of Defence was trying to cover his embarrassment, because he had briefed British MPs the day before that there had been no change in patrolling strategy and then had to come out and defend what had occurred and admit that he was only informed after the revision of the strategy had already occurred.

It led many Conservatives and opposition Labour MPs to stand up and openly make very clear their questioning of the strategy in Afghanistan, because we all know the order throws into question the main mission of the international deployment—that is, to work with and train Afghan troops and police. The Prime Minister has argued we are going to stay the course to train Afghan soldiers, troops and police and now we are saying that NATO has just changed the whole strategy—the Americans changed the whole strategy—because of the number of deaths. The strategy undermines this whole business of suggesting that we are there to train the Afghan troops. As a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute says:

This is a symbol of a much deeper problem of Afghan-American distrust. In a way, there was a bigger change last month when special forces stopped training Afghan local Police.

This is a signal that the US does not trust its counterparts. It is a statement of mounting cynicism and resignation.

…   …   …

… Hamid Karzai, had pledged to vet all new recruits but Nato officials on Tuesday said the plan had never been properly implemented.

He went on to say:

Vetting is virtually impossible in a place like Afghanistan … In such conditions the suspension of joint patrols made 'eminent sense' …

He then goes on to talk about how long it would last. Now the government here has said that it is only temporary. Surely, the whole core of the mission has now been completely restricted, changed, because of this. It is time that the Prime Minister explained to Australians why we are still in Afghanistan. If the core mission was to work in smaller numbers with groups of Afghani security personnel so that they can take over security and the Australians can leave in 2014 and that has now been overturned, why are we still there?

We are putting at risk the lives of young Australian men and women. We have just witnessed a terrible tragedy in Afghanistan. We lost more people in one day in Afghanistan than we have since the Vietnam War. We have just seen the suffering of their families around Australia. And nobody can answer the question here, in this parliament, as to why our troops are still there under increasingly dangerous circumstances. We should be bringing our troops home as safely and quickly as possible.

The United Kingdom has now said that there is going to be a cabinet review of its policy in Afghanistan. For goodness sake, we must have the same kind of cabinet and parliamentary review and not this silence about what is going on in Afghanistan and saying that we are going to stay the course. Stay the course to what? To the loss of more young lives? And for what? 2014 is an arbitrary date. It is not going to change anything in Afghanistan. If the Americans treat us with such contempt that they do not even consult us, the question is: why are we still there? (Time expired)

Question agreed to.