Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] What is unfolding right now in Afghanistan is a humanitarian crisis that requires an urgent response. The Greens and the community are united in calling for a concrete set of tangible actions to be taken by the Australian government to support the people of Afghanistan, to show solidarity with them in this terrible moment of disaster and fear, and to support those Afghanis living here in Australia. The Greens and the community are calling for immediate allocation of 20,000 additional humanitarian visas to be granted so that those in danger can come to safety. We are calling, together with the community, for the immediate conversion of temporary protection and shared visas to permanent visas so that those here in Australia are relieved from this constant state of limbo in which they have been forced to live by governments of all persuasions. We are calling for the immediate return of all Afghan refugees and asylum seekers from offshore detention to be processed here in the community and be granted permanent visas. We are additionally calling for assistance to the internally displaced people who are now in what seems to be a rapidly unravelling civil war within the nation. We are doing all of these things at the urging of the community and are proud to be alongside them in solidarity and support in this very difficult time.

It was an honour and a privilege to be able to gather with the community yesterday in WA at the same time as communities rallied across Australia to show their support for the people of Afghanistan in this moment. And there was a very clear message for everybody who attended: community members across the country demand that the major parties, the federal government and the state governments do all that they can to support Afghanistan, to support its people, to maintain rights and justice and to use all the levers that Australia has to make sure that those human rights are upheld in Afghanistan. It is so important that Australia use its position in the world to make sure that any government that forms in Afghanistan is one which upholds the rights of women and girls, one which upholds the rights of children and one which guarantees the human rights of all ethnic minorities, whether they be Hazara, whether they be Pashtun, whether they be Tajik or whether they be Uzbek. All human rights in Afghanistan must be upheld. These are the urgent concrete actions which must be taken now in addition to the continuation of evacuations of those on the ground in Afghanistan so that they are able to be brought to safety and that no-one is left behind.

As we take these urgent and concrete steps, it is also vitally important that the major parties, and prime ministers and foreign ministers past and present, reflect on how Australia and Afghanistan ended up in this moment. There must be a full and honest reflection upon what has happened here. The crisis in Afghanistan, the return of the Taliban, is the latest in a series of failed experiments in wars of overseas violent intervention participated in by Australia alongside the United States. From Vietnam to Iraq and now Afghanistan, Australia has repeatedly followed the United States to wars of aggression, with the result that many of our service personnel have died, many more have been wounded and hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, if not millions, have been lost in those nations.

There is an urgent need to recognise and to reckon with the reality that there are credible allegations that, during the 20 years that our armed forces personnel were in country in Afghanistan, there were many instances of war crimes committed by service personnel in that country. We must reflect on the importance of not only holding individuals to account but also holding the chain of command to account, holding the strategists to account and holding to account the political leaders who let our presence and our forces in Afghanistan so dangerously drift, without any discernible purpose, into a context where some of the most heinous violations of the laws of war are now alleged to have taken place.

We must reflect also on the urgent need to consider whether there would have been, and will be in the future, ways that we could have been able to promote human rights globally that do not involve doing so at the end of a gun and whether, if ever the people of Australia are called upon to take up arms or to deploy overseas, that only occurs after a vote of this parliament. No Australian service personnel member should be asked to put their lives on the line for a cause for which no MP has been prepared to vote.

All of these things must be done urgently to support the community and to translate the very fine and comforting words that are so easily now spoken by members of the major parties into concrete actions. We cannot have a situation where debates are held in the Senate or in the House of Representatives in which members give contributions singing the praises of armed forces personnel and committing Australia to support the people of Afghanistan while there is also a failure to translate those words into the concrete actions for which the community is calling.

I say again, there must be 20,000 humanitarian visa places issued specifically for those from Afghanistan. There must be the conversion of temporary protection visas, shifting visas to permanent visa status so that health care, education and supports can be accessed. There must be the continuation of evacuations for those who supported the Australian mission in Afghanistan and also for those who are additionally at risk: the journalists, the academics, the MPs, the activists that are now at risk from the Taliban. We must use our position in the world to ensure that any government that forms in Afghanistan is one which upholds the rights of women, children, girls and ethnic minorities. All this must be done out of recognition that the moment that Afghanistan now finds itself in is a moment to which Australia has contributed.

We are not passive actors in this crisis. A decision was made by the political leadership of this country to follow the United States into this conflict, into this war which has claimed so many Afghani, Hazara, Pashtun, Uzbek and Turkic lives, and so many of the lives of our Defence Force personnel, and has wounded so many. Those were political decisions that were made by Australian political leaders, and those leaders must now take those concrete actions, live up to their obligations and leave no-one behind. I thank the chamber for its time.