Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Smith for his question. So far we have evacuated approximately 4,000 people—Australian citizens, permanent residents, visa holders and others—on 29 flights over the past eight days. I offer my profound thanks to the many Australian officials who have worked and are working on this operation, particularly my own Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Home Affairs and Defence. Our cooperation with other countries, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, has been vital in achieving this outcome, and we thank our partners for that important cooperation. Last night and this morning we evacuated around 1,200 people from Kabul on six ADF flights and one NZDF flight. I can also confirm that since 18 August we have brought 639 evacuees back to Australia, following a flight into Brisbane early this morning carrying 220 people. This has followed previous flights to Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide.

To those Afghans who've already arrived in Australia, we say welcome back to the Australians and permanent residents and welcome to your new home to our visa holders. To those soon to travel here, we look forward to your arrival. We can only imagine the challenges that you have been dealing with in recent times. We thank the states and territories for their support in this important evacuation. As I said, we understand this is an extremely distressing time for Australians in Kabul and others, such as visa holders and visa applicants. For those in Australia who still have family and friends in Afghanistan, we do understand that distress. We are fully aligned with our international partners to insist that the Taliban hold to international standards of human rights and protections. We do remain focused on the safe evacuation from Afghanistan of as many Australians and visa holders as possible for as long as possible.