Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the ministerial statement on Afghanistan.

September 11, 2011 was the tenth anniversary, if we can call it that, of the horrific and cowardly attacks on the twin towers in which, along with 2,977 people from 90 different nations, 11 Australians were killed. In October 2002 at Kuta in Bali, 88 Australians were killed. In September 2004 at the Australian embassy in Jakarta, nine Indonesians were killed and over 150 injured. In July 2005, one Australian was killed and 11 were injured in the London train and bus bombings. In October 2005 at Jimbaran beach and Kuta in Bali, four Australians were killed and 19 injured. In July 2009 at the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, three Australians were killed. Fortunately, attacks closer to home have been thwarted, notably an attack on Holsworthy Army base, planned for 4 August 2009, to be carried out by Australian based Islamic militants linked to the terrorist group al-Shabaab. The perpetrators planned on infiltrating the base and shooting as many Army personnel and others as possible until they were killed or captured.

These are some of the reasons that Australia is in Afghanistan fighting the scourge of terrorism which had its base in Afghanistan. Afghanistan had long been a training ground for terrorists, including those responsible for the attacks in Bali and Jakarta and against our embassy in Indonesia. Over the past decade, close on 100 Australians have been killed by terrorist attacks that were planned and executed from terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan. So, in the first instance, our presence denies Afghanistan as a training ground and operating base for al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations. Secondly, our presence helps stabilise the Afghan state through civil, police and military training for local Afghans which will enable them to achieve self-determination within a reasonable time frame.

There are an annual average of 1,550 Australian Defence Force personnel deployed within Afghanistan as part of Australia's military contribution to the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF. Our military, civilian and development assistance is directed towards mentoring the Afghan National Army 4th Brigade in Oruzgan province to eventually take on responsibility for the province's security, building the capacity of the Afghan National Police to assist with civil policing functions in Oruzgan, improving the Afghan government's capacity to deliver core services and generate economic opportunities and disrupting insurgent operations and supply routes utilising the Special Operations Task Group.

On occasions such as this it is worthwhile looking at the progress that has been made. The International Council on Security and Development, an organisation long critical of US policy in Afghanistan, is echoing the US sentiment that, as a result of the surge and refined strategy, many of the Taliban's long-time safe havens in Helmand and Kandahar have been destroyed. Mid-level Taliban commanders and their networks have been disrupted, dismantled or destroyed by special forces. In March 2011, General Petraeus told the US Armed Services Committee that in a typical three-month period 360 insurgent leaders were either killed or captured. This has had a marked effect on the average age of Taliban commanders, which, according to observers, has dropped from 35 to 25 in the past year.

The standing up of the Afghan National Army, the ANA, is taking time but it is progressing. The ANA has assumed security responsibility for Bamyan province, the first of 48 provinces, and over half of the patrol bases within the Oruzgan province. Another six provinces were handed over to the ANA and ANP authority in recent times. We talk of the Kabul province, Panjshir province, Herat city, Mazar-e Sharif city, Lashkar Gah city and Mehtar lam town. Real progress is being made. Retention rates for the ANA are slowly rising.

In addition to all those military gains and security gains in Afghanistan, it is worthwhile noting the improvements that have been made to the quality of living of the Afghan population. Let us go back 10 years. In 2001, Kabul was a ghost town and a home to 500,000 repressed, cold—cold because none of the heating worked—and depressed people. It is now a thriving city of three million, with shops, cafes, cinemas, music and girls and boys schools. In 2001, nine per cent of Afghans had access to basic medical care. Today that is at 85 per cent. In 2001 less than one million boys went to school. Today seven million young Afghans go to school, one-third of whom are girls. In 2001, you would struggle to find a phone. Today, one in three Afghans has a mobile phone. In 2001, only the Taliban's Voice of Shariat hit the airwaves. Today, there are over 100 active press outlets. So you can see the great progress that has been made.

Regrettably, previous moves to strike a deal with the Taliban have proved fruitless. I recall some 13 months ago, when we were considering this matter in this place, I was suggesting that peace should be given a chance and there should be discussions with the Taliban. Nevertheless, despite them being fruitless, I am encouraged to learn that negotiations with the Taliban continue in the hope of a breakthrough deal.

Just over a year ago, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Petraeus, said that progress in the war was sometimes as slow as 'watching grass grow or paint dry' but that American and coalition troops were nevertheless making headway with 'hard fought gains' against insurgents, but that it remained tough going. Recently, General Petraeus's successor, General John Allen, said:

Each day, Afghans are learning new skills, working to provide for their families, standing up for their communities, and labouring to build a new, more hopeful Afghanistan. With each step of progress, our shared enemy has come to realise that they cannot tear down what the Afghan people are building up. The enemies of peace are not mujahidin or martyrs, but murderers, and their violence, assassinations and attacks will not frighten the Afghan people into submission. Taliban fighters, too, are growing weary of their leaders—who stay off the battlefield, deciding instead to issue orders from the comforts of foreign lands. Because they have lost territory, support, morale, and the will to fight, many of these fighters are considering reintegration and choosing a future of hope and promise for themselves, their families, and their communities.

The current surge is witnessing success, with a large number of insurgents being killed and forced to retreat from areas formerly under strict Taliban control. More and more Taliban are now being forced into areas where they have not previously been dominant. So, in Oruzgan and neighbouring provinces, NATO and Australian forces are being called upon to engage in even more encounters with the Taliban. Unfortunately, this is resulting in further casualties for our troops.

Just last week, the alternative Prime Minister Mr Abbott visited our troops in Afghanistan. This was about a fortnight after three heroic Australian members of the Mentoring Task Force were killed by a rogue Afghan army member and about a week after another three were wounded by another Afghan soldier. Obviously, incidents like these cause people to question our mission. However, the Australians Mr Abbott met spoke highly of their Afghan allies, the vast majority of whom they regarded as worthy comrades. Mr Abbott's take-out was that there was little doubt that the security situation there is improving.

The insurgency still has the capacity to inflict casualties, using roadside bombs to carry out civilian massacres and to assassinate officials of the Karzai government. However, the military advice is that the Taliban's ability to engage in direct combat has been seriously degraded. Mr Abbott found that in Oruzgan more schools and clinics are open and many girls are getting an education for the very first time. The road between Tarin Kowt and Chora has been sealed and local villagers are reported to be increasingly turning on the Taliban. The ADF's Mentoring Task Force has helped make the 4th Brigade among the best in the Afghan army.

The transition from largely Western to largely Afghan security forces will take time and the Afghan government will almost certainly need military and financial support for some years to come. Still, it is important that we assist with the establishment of a more humane Afghan government and it is also in our own interests to ensure Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism. Our troops are doing an amazing job in difficult circumstances. The terrain is rugged, the climate harsh, the dust oppressive, the enemy dangerous and our rules for engagement restrictive. Yet, despite all of this, our forces are doing well, exceptionally well.

When last the Senate debated the war in Afghanistan 13 months ago, we had lost 21 brave young Australians and had sustained 150 injured. The toll now stands, regrettably, at 32 while 213 have been wounded in action. We are thinking of them and their families and their friends as we debate this matter. Each death is a tragedy but we should not expect war to be without sacrifice. The important thing is that this sacrifice is not in vain. Over the past decade, close on 100 Australians have been killed and many injured by terrorist attacks that were planned and executed from terrorist safe havens in the mountains of Afghanistan. Our commitment of troops in Afghanistan has disrupted such attacks. Our continued commitment is necessary to ensure that our gains are consolidated.

On the eve of Remembrance Day, the fiancee of Corporal Richard Atkinson, a soldier killed in Afghanistan, spoke of the challenges she has faced dealing with his death. Corporal Atkinson, a Tasmanian, was killed by a roadside bomb in February. It was his first deployment. He was part of an operation trying to drive the Taliban out of the Deh Rahwod area, west of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt, a vital strategic area in the war against the insurgency. Dannielle Kitchen, the fiancee, spoke of how she and Richard met, how she coped with his deployment in Afghanistan, how she heard the news of his passing and how she was coping with being a war widow at age 23. It is hard not to feel incredible sorrow about a young man, his life full of promise, on the cusp of marriage and starting his own family, being cut down in a foreign land and for his widow left behind to carry on. We will never know the sorrow of Richard's fiancée and family but we feel intensely for them as they carry their loss. It is some consolation that Richard was convinced that we were doing the right thing and that he was doing good in Afghanistan. It is important that his sacrifice and that of his fiancée not be in vain.

Unfortunately of late there has been an opportunistic element entering into the debate on the war in Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that the tragic deaths of Australian soldiers are used to call for withdrawal of our forces. That opportunism reached a low point with the regrettable question here in the Senate on the eve of Remembrance Day. The Leader of the Government in the Senate was asked whether the government was receiving letters from relatives concerned about the safety of their loved ones serving in Afghanistan, like that from a relative of the soldier which allegedly said, 'Everyone you speak to wants the boys home because no-one believes in this cause any more.' Well, Richard Atkinson did. But such self-serving tactics and seeking to capitalise on the media which follows the death of the digger dishonours our soldiers' sacrifice and, might I suggest, this place.

To withdraw from Afghanistan now would be potentially to give up the good progress which has been made. It would leave parts of Afghanistan vulnerable to return to Taliban control. It would lead to Afghanistan potentially again becoming a safe haven for terrorists to launch attacks on Australians. It would send a message to the locals for them to hedge their bets and stop full cooperation with us because they may have to live with the return of the Taliban. We all hope and pray for peace, especially in Afghanistan. But peace is not the absence of war, as some so simplistically seek to portray; peace is the true, unencumbered exercise of freedom. Many have engaged in war and died to defend or gain those freedoms and that is why we are in Afghanistan. When we lose a soldier, we as a nation mourn and share the pain. When our soldiers make huge gains and root out Taliban strongholds, build schools and allow girls to go to school, our media, for some reason, becomes less excited.

The Senate rightly salutes and pays respects to our fallen heroes. Might I suggest that it could also be appropriate for us to salute the freedoms like girls being allowed to go to school for this first time, the new roads, the new schools and the new hospitals which are being developed in Afghanistan as we speak on a daily basis by our troops. This imbalance in reporting regrettably impacts public sentiment. However, it should not deter us from the task. Having said that, we need to 'give peace a chance'. Of course we should seek to conclude our presence in Afghanistan. To broadcast a precipitous withdrawal will only embolden the Taliban and disenchant the locals.

As we embark on the Christmas period remembering the purpose of Christ's birth was sacrifice for our common good, let us remember those who will be away from their family over this period of goodwill, who are willing to serve our nation and, if need be, follow the example of sacrifice for the greater good. The coalition salutes the work of our troops in Afghanistan.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This issue is hugely important to Australians, particularly to the good and true members of our defence forces, their families and their communities. It is a debate that this parliament has not represented well or fairly. It is one the Greens have pursued throughout the Howard years and through the last four years of Labor government. We are tonight debating the deployment of our troops in Afghanistan and the legitimate question that any parliament, any administration or any leadership must ask as to whether that deployment serves the nation's interests and whether the risk of life and limb and the risk to future happiness of defence force personnel are warranted, because we must never ever have such deployment treated lightly or without due scrutiny.

It is the job of this parliament to scrutinise the deployment of our defence force personnel to Afghanistan. I take issue with some of the comments of Senator Abetz before he left the chamber relating to the ability of parliamentarians to speak up on this issue.

I have never resiled from the Greens position of having our troops brought home from Afghanistan, nor have I ever raised the issue except in the wake of the leaders of the government and the opposition reaffirming the need for our troops to stay in Afghanistan. Let me quote from Major General Alan Stretton (Rtd) in a recent letter to the press in which he said:

The spectacle of politicians from both parties agreeing to send our finest Australians to their deaths and then appearing on television offering their condolences to grieving widows and relatives is sickening.

The policy that we can train the Afghan army to take over security in Afghanistan is laughable. The Afghan government is corrupt, and its army has been penetrated by Taliban forces whose main activity is killing allied forces operating in their country.

Elements of the Australian Defence Force have now been in Afghanistan for over 10 years—surely this is long enough.

They are very trying sentiments from a good and long-serving, but now retired, member of our defence forces and they are not alone, certainly in dispatches I have received.

Let me put the need for this debate another way. It has been as a result of quite extraordinarily high profile debates in the Netherlands and Canada that they have withdrawn their troops from Afghanistan. These are countries very similar to Australia, both of whom deployed more troops than Australia but whose parliaments have been committed to the very difficult debate—because it is complex—about retaining their armies in Afghanistan. In the case of the Netherlands, the government fell over the issue but their troops were withdrawn. Indeed, it is those troops whom our wonderful service men and women are now replacing in Oruzgan province. In Canada it was the very conservative government of Prime Minister Harper, faced with opposition from other parties in the Canadian parliament, who finally made the decision to have the Canadian contingents withdrawn, after more than 100 deaths, and that process has now been completed in Afghanistan.

Last week the President of the United States, Barack Obama, spoke in our parliament and asked us to maintain our troops in Afghanistan. Let us look at the relative deployment. The American deployment of some 100,000 is currently being reduced to 68,000. Ten thousand US troops are in the process of being withdrawn before Christmas. There is no such withdrawal of a relative component of Australian Defence Force personnel from Afghanistan. Next year the United States is withdrawing another 20,000 of its troops. There is no plan to withdraw—or lessen by one—the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan. The Cameron government in Britain is going to withdraw 400 to 500 troops by February. There is no similar commitment by the government or opposition in this parliament to have our troop numbers reduced in Afghanistan. President Sarkozy of France has said that there will be a continuous wind-down, from now through next year and into 2014, of French troops. There is no comparable commitment to withdraw Australian troops from Afghanistan.

It seems, on the basis of two similar countries having withdrawn their forces altogether, after a full parliamentary debate in rich, functioning democracies like ours, and a decision in similar but larger democracies to withdraw troops—starting in 2011, not in 2014—that Australia alone has decided to keep its full troop commitment operating in Afghanistan. There is a difference here. President Obama may make his call to our parliament to retain our troops while he is withdrawing 10,000 troops, but would it not be appropriate for our parliament to discuss the deployment of our 1,550 good and true Australian Defence Force personnel to some of the most dangerous situations in Afghanistan at a time when the US is bringing home 10,000 of its troops? I think so.

I heard Senator Abetz again go through the list of things going right in Afghanistan, but there is a lot going wrong as well. Corruption is rampant. Senator Milne tells me that a report in Congress today indicates a vast amount of money for the people of Afghanistan and the war against the Taliban is being siphoned off by people related to the Karzai regime or otherwise in positions of power in Afghanistan. We have the position where there is an increasing voice in Afghanistan itself calling for the withdrawal of our troops and of course today the news in Australia, completely ignored by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and, indeed, Senator Abetz in his contribution to this chamber, of a call by the commander of the Afghan troops with whom the Australians are serving in Oruzgan province, Brigadier General Mohammed Zafar Khan, for Australia's troops, effectively, to leave. 'Give us your equipment and leave' is effectively what the Afghan leader our troops are working with said. He said:

Three years is too much time for the Australians to stay here …

We, as responsible guardians of the welfare of our troops committed in Afghanistan and with a huge obligation on our shoulders to defend the interests of their families and our communities, surely should be debating such a remarkable statement from such a leader in the Afghan forces. It is time our troops were brought home to Australia.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am certainly pleased to have the opportunity—albeit brief—to contribute to this debate on Australia's involvement in Afghanistan. I still believe, as I have said before in the Senate, that in the post 9-11 world Australia cannot afford to ignore its national security interests in corners of the globe beyond our territorial borders and outside of our region. I still believe Australia as a member of the international community must not shirk its responsibilities in Afghanistan.

Let us not forget that we operate in Afghanistan under a United Nations mandate that is renewed annually. Let us not forget that we operate in Afghanistan as a member of the International Security Assistance Force, along with partners from 48 nations. Let us not forget that we are not an invasion force in Afghanistan, but that we are there at the invitation of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Let us not forget that we are there for the most important and legitimate of reasons—to ensure that Afghanistan is no longer a place where terrorists are trained and find safe haven. We must not forget that we have a clear operational military objective—to train the 4th Brigade of the Afghan National Army so it can take full responsibility for security and stability in Oruzgan province. The less secure Afghanistan is, the less secure Australia and Australians are.

There is a human cost to our involvement—and it is a very heavy human cost. As we all know, the risks to our personnel are serious—32 Australians have died, 11 this year, and 213 Australians have been wounded in action, 48 this year. This is a terrible, terrible toll. So many families have suffered pain and loss. So many have had their lives changed forever as a result of those Australian casualties. But I for one do not want the effort and sacrifice of our troops in Afghanistan to be in vain. I want to see Australia finish the job in Afghanistan and go.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am surprised that the Leader of the Government in the Senate is not here for this very important debate this evening. That we have lost 32 fine Australians in Afghanistan is a measure of both the commitment of our soldiers and more broadly our national resolve to complete our mission there. It is not often appreciated that a safe haven for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was the launch pad of the 9-11 attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and the passenger aircraft on that fateful day.

Closer to home, over the past decade close on 100 Australians have been killed by terrorist attacks that were planned and executed from safe havens in the mountains of Afghanistan. On 12 October 2002 in Bali, 88 Australians were killed, and, in a bombing on 9 September 2004 at the Australian embassy, nine Indonesians were killed and 150-plus injured. In the 7 July 2005 London train bombings, one Australian was killed and 11 injured, with 56 killed and 700-plus injured overall. At Jimbaran Beach in Kuta, Bali, on 1 October 2005, four Australians were killed and 19 injured, with a total of 26 killed and 100 injured. In the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, three Australians were killed out of a total of seven, with 53 people injured.

The Vice-President of the United States in 2006 said:

Hambali (the planner of the Australian Embassy attack and also the 2002 bombing—currently held in Guantanamo Bay) went to the training camps in Afghanistan that they ran back in the '90s, subsequently received funding from al Qaeda, went back then to Indonesia, and was behind some of the major attacks there. So you've got this sort of home-grown, but nonetheless affiliated, extremist operation going now in Indonesia. You'll find the same thing if you go to Morocco, where they had the attack in Casablanca; in Turkey, Istanbul, and so forth.

So Afghanistan was more than just a safe haven. It was a training ground. It was where they honed their terrorist skills.

Our mission was therefore originally the denial of Afghanistan as a training ground and an operational base for al-Qaeda from which to project its global terrorist activities. It was then to stabilise the Afghan state through the enhancement of security through military, police and civilian consolidation. More particularly, such work for Australia was to focus on Oruzgan province. As a necessary adjunct to the mission, those who gave that safe haven to al-Qaeda, namely the Taliban, had to be dealt with.

This was an organisation which, apart from providing that safe haven to al-Qaeda and all the terror that that caused around the world, imposed upon the Afghan people a number of atrocious, strict edicts. Women were banished from the workforce. Schools were closed to girls and women, and women were expelled from universities. Women were prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative—and so on and so forth. Women and girls in Afghanistan and the wider society were treated to atrocities by the Taliban. Women were beaten, publicly flogged and killed for violating Taliban decrees.

Today our work is ongoing and carried out under a United Nations mandate, renewed annually, through the participation of some 48 partner countries spread throughout Afghanistan, each in particular areas and provinces and each doing particular tasks and particular work. Our soldiers and their extended families should take some considerable comfort and great confidence from the fact that the Australian parliament is virtually unanimously supportive and committed to them and their sons and daughters engaged in our cause in Afghanistan. This is a most noble and legitimate cause and one which is and continues to be supported by both sides of the political divide in this country. It is a subject matter which is above partisan political politics, and I for one am greatly gratified by that and maintain that it should remain so.

There are extraordinarily large challenges for us in this particular theatre. The execution of this mandate is uniquely difficult in Afghanistan, and it was never for one single minute going to be easy. Afghanistan has a troubled and volatile history, with a disparate, semitribal society, geographically separated by an impossible natural topography of very, very high mountains running into deep, fertile valleys. It is a land of rough and underdeveloped roads, very limited communications infrastructure and few developed governmental administrative institutions. It was, in short, an ideal country for a safe haven for an international terrorist network.

Our mission there is an evolving one as we improve the capability of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan security forces, including police. As we assist in the establishment of governance of various qualities in each of the provinces, we are providing mentoring that is moving towards self-reliance and towards Afghan command. Indeed, I pause to say that some 10 of our forward operating bases in Afghanistan are now under exclusive Afghan command. That is a significant step forward, a step in the right direction.

We have participated in the preparation and training of the Afghan National Army in the removal of IEDs, improvised explosive devices, and in the location and destruction of caches of weapons, ammunition and bomb-making equipment. Further to all of this is training in the disruption of the narcotics trade and the cutting of the flow of money from such trade. As part of our commitment we have also deployed some 20 officers of the Australian Federal Police to mentor and train police officers for Afghanistan. I congratulate each and every one of those 20 Australian Federal Police officers on the fabulous work they are doing in our name.

Progress has been slow and not without difficulty, but there has been some significant progress. In education there are seven million students, of whom approximately three million are girls. There are now more children receiving an education than ever before in the country's history—and, importantly, more girls than ever before. The Australian Greens might see this as a positive.

Since 2001 there has been a 26 per cent decline in mortality in children under five years of age. The Australian Greens might see this as a positive. Millions of Afghans have benefited from ISAF water and sanitation programs. Again, the Greens might see this as a positive.

There have been two recent national elections. There was a presidential ballot with a voter turnout of 1.26 million voters, some 30 per cent of the voting population. The next was a general election on 18 September 2010, with 406 candidates out of 3,000 being women—16 per cent were females—and with a turnout of 4.33 million people, of whom 1.77 million were women. The Greens might see that as a positive.

In recent years, the economic growth of Afghanistan has been averaging, year in, year out, about 11 per cent. There has been the construction of around 10,000 kilometres of paved roads within the country. People can move around the country, and there are an ever-increasing number of cars on the roads. These are positive, positive things happening in the country due to our role and the role of our ISAF partners. The Australian Defence Force has provided reconstruction teams of engineers and other technical skills to build schools, to construct and run health clinics and for trade training. There have been many, many successes, with local markets and other commerce beginning to flourish.

I pause to mention the most recent success—that is, our great ally the United States firstly locating the architect of so much of the world's recent terrorist history and then bringing Osama bin Laden to the justice he charted for himself in his own evil. This was a very successful operation which was executed with professionalism and great skill. I am someone who believes that, following the demise of this man, the world can rest just a little bit easier in terms of the terrorist threat. A great blow has been struck against terrorism, with no casualties. This event is truly one of the successes that ISAF and, particularly, the United States have had in Afghanistan, and I for one want to thank the Navy Seals and all of the personnel involved in this achievement. It was a wonderful victory and a wonderful symbol for justice, given what we have seen, particularly in the last decade, in terms of international terrorism.

I turn now to Pakistan. Pakistan has had significant issues with the Taliban following their flight from Afghanistan into the Swat Valley in particular. It is trite to say but it is obvious there can be no regional security around Afghanistan without the commitment of its neighbours to peace and stability. Pakistan must do more to isolate the Taliban in the region. Counter-terrorism in this region must be at the very forefront of priority policy considerations. Pakistan would serve its own best interests if it were to do more to secure its border with Afghanistan and prevent the supply of weapons, ammunition and explosive material to the Taliban. Pakistan has been through a lot. It feels threatened, but it must do more to arrest the flow of weapons and explosives to the Taliban and into Afghanistan.

To put Australia's contribution into context, 1,550 Australian Defence Force personnel have been deployed into Afghanistan. Currently, the United States has more than 90,000 troops in Afghanistan and the United Kingdom has 9,500 out of a total of 130,638 ISAF troops. We rely upon our partners and particularly the United States for capability, enablers, air support, helicopters and logistics generally. To that extent, our destiny in Afghanistan is subject to the timing and resolve of ISAF member states with a greater commitment than ours, particularly the United States. All of us agree that our people should not be there for one minute longer than is necessary. There is, however, no capacity for us to be half-committed to this mission. We have paid too high a price to be half-hearted or wavering. Having said that, there is no blank cheque here. All ISAF members want to see the job done and an appropriate level of self-reliance in indigenous capacity as soon as possible. Everyone is diligently pursuing that end. We want to get out as soon as possible.

I turn to the men and women of our Australian Defence Force. They have performed in this theatre magnificently, as difficult as it has been. They have been totally committed to the task, a task that we all have agreed is in the national interest. There have been extreme hardships and great tragedies, immense loss and miraculous survivals. Through it all, our soldiers have achieved great success, often in the most difficult of circumstances, from searing heat to subzero temperatures in remote locations for extended periods on combat rations. We at home have all become familiar with the Bushmaster—an Australian made and designed vehicle that has seen over 50 destroyed through IEDs and mine detonations, with not one loss of life. This is a truly great achievement for the Australian Defence Force and for the Australian manufacturing industry. Over 50 have been blown up, each with a number of personnel inside, and no-one has died. Our special forces, who have been called upon to conduct operations right around Afghanistan, have done so with great distinction. In this place previously I have cited many of their achievements, commendations and medals that have been awarded. We have been relatively small in number in Afghanistan but have made a significant contribution to making things better for the population of that country. The Australian Defence Force can take great pride in its achievement in Afghanistan.

While we have achieved much, the parliament continues to reserve the right to raise issues about combat clothing and equipment, about the quality of food and about the quality of flights to and from the MEAO. It is not too much to ask that our soldiers in Tarin Kowt have good food, that their combat clothing is fit for purpose and that when we fly them from Brisbane, Townsville, Sydney or Darwin into the MEAO we do so in quality aircraft. To that end, it is clear that we have an issue with the time that we are permitted to retain prisoners—96 hours is obviously insufficient, particularly in comparison to the practice of the United States and the United Kingdom. It appears that we secure these suspects or combatants, as the case may be, at considerable risk to our own personnel, only to see them released in that 96-hour period to rejoin the fight. This is unacceptable. I call upon the Minister for Defence to fix this in line with the wishes of our people. When we travel to the MEAO our people tell us this is not working. So I say: come on, Minister, fix this—it is not difficult.

We have sustained, as I have said, 32 losses, and I have attended more than 20 funerals. No words suffice in talking of those killed in action or of those wounded in action. To the families, the wives, the girlfriends, the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and sons and daughters: I am in admiration of the selfless sacrifice of their loved ones and of themselves. Those that we have lost shall never be forgotten. It is inadequate but I shall simply say a sincere thankyou to them.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would also like to add my comments to those of my colleagues and acknowledge the 32 Australian soldiers who travelled to Afghanistan and did not return; the 213 wounded Australian service men and women who, unlike those who died in the line of duty in Afghanistan, are acknowledged in this place too rarely and have become the forgotten victims of the war; the more than 2,700 coalition casualties in this war that has now lasted longer than the first and second world wars combined; the nearly 9,000 civilian dead in Afghanistan over the last four years alone; and the 320,000 Afghan civilians displaced because of a war that they did not ask for. In particular I want to pay tribute to those who flee, those who take the extraordinarily risky and dangerous journey that was not of their choosing and those who manage after a difficult journey filled with many dangers to reach Australian shores. I hope that we can acknowledge in the course of this debate that the least we can do to cope with the consequences of a war that we helped initiate on the other side of the world is look after those who flee from it.

We heard Senator Abetz, when he opened the debate, say real progress is being made. I wonder how many government and coalition senators in the course of this debate simply dusted off the same speeches that they gave earlier this year or speeches that they might have given five years ago and just read them in again, because the justifications do not appear to have changed and the platitudes do not appear to have changed—'real progress is being made'. Perhaps we can add that 2011 is going to be the decisive year in the conduct of this war, until we go back and look at what military officials have been saying about the Afghan conflict since the beginning. In 2004 General Barno said 'Without question this is a decisive year in Afghanistan.' In 2005 General Abuzaid said, 'I think this can be the decisive year.' In 2006 General Richards said, 'This will be the crunch year for the Taliban.' Guido Westerwelle, who is the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, said '2011 will be the decisive year.' David Miliband, the UK foreign minister, said it last year. General McChrystal said in 2008, 'We are knee deep in the decisive year.' When exactly will this conflict be decided?

It is good for the MPs who speak in favour of this war because you will find, as I and my colleagues on the crossbenches have discovered, that if you oppose this war as an elected Australian parliamentarian there is nothing you can do about it in here. These decisions are made by the executive, not by the parliamentarians. It is wonderful that Senator Johnston, who has taken a keen interest as shadow spokesperson in these issues for many years, is dealing with the issues of clothing, food, airlift and so on. But if he one day realises that this war is pure folly, as we believe it is, there will not be a thing that he can do about it because these parliamentarians, our colleagues on both sides of this house, do not have the power. The decision is made by the Prime Minister and the executive.

I believe, as many of my colleagues do and as the Australian Democrats before us did, that that needs to change, as it has in most other modern democracies. The parliament is not called on to make the strategic decisions about the conduct of the war or the tactical decisions that govern the fighting from day to day, but the political decision about whether we should be there in the first place and when is an appropriate time to leave should be made by those who have to look our constituents in the eye. I wonder how politicians who have spoken so far in both chambers in this debate look in the eye the 64 per cent or thereabouts of Australians who think they have had enough and that this should in fact be concluded. Sixty-four per cent of Australians—twice as many as it was over the last couple of years—have realised as this war simmered away in the background that in fact the death toll is higher every year. If things are going so well, as we have heard this evening, how come the death toll and the toll of wounded, in particular the toll of injury and death from those who we are meant to be supporting, is now much greater than before? Why are our allies killing us in Afghanistan? It is because we are not wanted there. When I hear Senator Abetz or others say that real progress is being made, I cannot help but wonder: progress towards what? Senator Abetz talks about the importance of sacrifices being made and I wonder: sacrifices by who exactly?

The context is that the Dutch have left and many other countries with whom we shared the enormous burdens of our service men and women in Afghanistan have either gone or have had debates that had more teeth than the one we are experiencing tonight, and have experienced over the course of the last year or two in this parliament, and chosen to go. They have had enough. We realise of course that perhaps you could be forgiven for thinking that Oruzgan is the whole of the country and that, if Australia takes care of our little patch, continues to build trust, continues to build schools and infrastructure and continues to do the best we can to keep people safe, somehow the situation is unfolding in a like way around the country. Of course, that is not the case. The United States government is in the process now of contemplating a major shift of posture which will take them exactly to where the Soviets were. They will be moving people out of Oruzgan and they will be concentrating on population centres and major road and transport corridors in Helmand, Kandahar and in Kabul, which is what the Soviet Union did—try and hold the big cities, try and hold the infrastructure and let the country cope as best it can. That is what is happening here. As Australian parliamentarians we need to realise that the war is about to enter an extremely dangerous phase. This talk of progress being made is illusory.

Why, you might wonder, 2014? That is the date we heard when President Obama addressed this parliament last week. It was a remarkably uncritical address that canvassed the fact that, with Afghanistan and Iraq out of the way, the United States can shift its assets to the Asia-Pacific region and continue peace-building initiatives in our corner of the world. But really, why 2014? I have not heard any analysis in any corner of the debate here in Australia. There has certainly been no mention of it tonight. I wonder whether it has anything at all to do with the fact that it is the year the trans-Afghanistan pipeline is due to be completed, which for the first time will get gas from Central Asia to India and to the coast without recourse to Russia or former Soviet satellite states. That was something that the US government was in the middle of negotiating with the Taliban before the Taliban hitched their wagon to Osama bin Laden. Before the horrific attacks on New York City and Washington the US government was quite happily negotiating with the Taliban over access rights for that pipeline. That appears to have suffered a 10-year hiatus, but I am informed that everything is now on track for completion in 2014. Isn't that an extraordinary coincidence? What are we really there for?

We discover again the enormous value of the whistleblowers, publishers and journalists involved in the WikiLeaks organisation and those news organisations around the world that have chosen to publish material that shows what our leaders really think is very different to what we hear in contexts like this—that is, that there is enormous pessimism in NATO forces and Western capitals around the world. But of course this is not allowed to seep through to the public because the polls are bad enough as it is.

A number of MPs have mentioned women, Senator Johnston in particular. It is wonderful to hear the plight of women used as the justification for a military invasion and it is good that people care about such things. But we know that Afghanistan is now the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman because that survey has been done. The aid agencies working inside Afghanistan know this very well. In June this year a Trust Law report found that violence, dismal health care and brutal poverty make Afghanistan the world's most dangerous country for women. Ten years after the first bombers and the first ground forces went in it is the most dangerous country for women overall and the worst in three of six risk categories of health, non-sexual violence and lack of access to economic resources. I am dusting off some older material from a speech that I read earlier this year because it does not seem to be getting through.

I do not want hear these justifications or these extraordinary platitudes by people on the other side of the world in safe offices that if we just stay the job will get done. An extraordinary American peace activist, Kathy Kelly, who put herself on the front line—she was in Baghdad for 'shock and awe' and she has spent a huge amount of time in Afghanistan talking to people—has said:

One way to stop the next war is to continue to tell the truth about this one.

That is what the Australian Greens will continue to do until it is over.

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is appropriate that as Parliamentary Secretary for Defence I make some comments in this very important debate. This morning the Prime Minister made a very forthright statement about our commitment in Afghanistan in the House of Representatives. She set out very clearly our mission in that country and why it is necessary that we complete that mission before we withdraw our forces. She also spoke frankly about the high price that we as a nation are paying as part of that commitment, of the 32 members of our defence forces who have given their lives in Afghanistan and of the now over 200 personnel who have been wounded there. She said with great feeling—and that is, of course, a feeling that all of us in this place share—it is a grave thing for a government to ask the young men and women of a nation's armed forces to put their lives at risk and no government should do so without a just objective, a clear objective and an attainable objective.

Those of us who hold government office need to examine our consciences before we make any such commitment. War is evil, but sometimes war is the lesser of two evils. A war that meets certain conditions can perhaps be regarded as a just war. To my mind, on reflecting on this, I think these conditions are: firstly, that the damage inflicted by the aggressor is lasting, grave and certain; secondly, that all other means of putting an end to aggression have been ineffective; thirdly, that there are serious prospects of success; and, fourthly, that the use of arms will not produce evils worse than the evil that is to be eliminated. I believe that our commitment in Afghanistan meets all four of these conditions.

The war in Afghanistan results from the complicity of the Taliban regime with the terrorist attacks of September 11 in 2001. The damage caused by the Taliban and al-Qaeda both to the international community and to the people of Afghanistan certainly has been lasting, grave and certain. The decision of the US and its allies to intervene in Afghanistan was taken only after the refusal of the Taliban, under the regime of Mullah Omar, to hand over those responsible for those attacks. They were, of course, being harboured in Afghanistan. We have heard from Senator Faulkner about how it is that this conflict in Afghanistan as a consequence of those beginnings has been a UN mandated activity.

The prospects for success in Afghanistan are, in my opinion, very good, although the government has never pretended that achieving success would be quick or easy. We need to ask ourselves what we mean by success. I would define success not in the simple military sense of defeating the enemy but as the creation of a situation in which the people of Afghanistan can defend themselves against attempts by the Taliban to regain power. That means that there must, in the end, be a political settlement. But a settlement is a very different thing to a surrender. Whilst the use of arms always produces evils, such as death, injury and destruction, I have no doubt that even greater evils would result if we were to withdraw now and expose the people of Afghanistan to the heightened risk of the Taliban returning to power and Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups.

While the task of achieving our mission in Afghanistan is certainly an arduous one and fraught with moral hazards, I have a clear conscience about advocating that we stick to the task we have set ourselves, which is working with our allies and the people of Oruzgan province to create a situation where they can live in peace and provide for their own security in a reasonable period of time. But I do wonder about how some other members of the Senate square their consciences with the positions they have taken in this debate and in similar debates in this place over the past few years. I think that those who have advocated our immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan either have failed to fully appreciate what the consequences of that would be for the people of Afghanistan or have somehow decided that their own political righteousness and their persistent hostility to the United States are more important than the fate of 29 million Afghans.

I noticed that in his remarks only a few moments ago Senator Ludlam again alluded to US conspiracy theories and the eternal search of US multinationals for greater resources. But of course Senator Bob Brown regularly points out to this Senate—and rightly so—that gay men are oppressed and victimised in various countries. Let us remember what is the fate of gay men in Afghanistan. I quote from a news story from 1998:

Two men were executed for sodomy in the western Afghanistan province of Herat, the Taleban-controlled Voice of Sharia announced March 23. Bismellah, age 22, and Abdul Sami, 18, had a wall bulldozed onto them in a traditional Islamic method of executions used only for sodomy convictions.

Those are the people who will return to power in Afghanistan if the Greens have their wish that we withdraw from there prematurely.

Senator Milne and Senator Hanson-Young both have strong views on the rights of women in various countries—again, rightly so. But have they really given thought to what would happen to the women and girls of Afghanistan if the Taliban were to return to power? Let me give them some idea. Under the Taliban, women were forced to wear the burqa in public, were not allowed to work and were not allowed to be educated after the age of eight. Women were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a chaperone, which of course led to many illnesses remaining untreated or being inadequately treated. They faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's laws. The Taliban encouraged child marriage and forced marriage: Amnesty International has reported that 80 per cent of Afghan marriages were considered to be by force. Women were forbidden to ride bicycles or to ride in a taxi without a chaperone. Do Senator Milne and Senator Hanson-Young really want to return 10 million Afghan women and girls to such a regime? I recommend to them Time magazine of 29 July 2010, which featured on its cover a shocking photo of Aisha, an 18-year-old Afghan woman, who was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws, a consequence of one of the forced marriages which the Taliban mandate.

Senator Ludlam frequently brings cases of human rights violations in various countries to the attention of the Senate—and a good thing too. Perhaps he is not aware that under the Taliban advocating any religion other than Islam, even in a private conversation, was punishable by death, that Islamic prayer was compulsory and that those found not praying at appointed times or who were late attending prayer were punished by severe beatings. Perhaps he does not know that the Taliban outlawed music of all kinds, secular publishing of any kind, television sets, video cassettes, audio cassettes, satellite dishes and movies.

I do not pretend that all of these evils have been eradicated from Afghanistan in the 10 years since the Taliban were removed. As I said in my last remarks on this subject, in October, no-one ever said that Afghanistan would become a second Switzerland. Afghanistan is a poor country with a long and enduring history of violence and arbitrary government. (Quorum formed) There are of course wide cultural differences between Afghanistan and the Western world, and no doubt there always will be, but it is completely false to assert, as Senator Ludlam did in a speech here just last month, that there has been no progress in Afghanistan since the Taliban was removed from power.

Let me once again list some of the examples of that progress; I hope that those senators who think we should abandon the people of Afghanistan to their fate will take note. GDP growth has averaged 11 per cent since 2002 and was 22 per cent in 2009. This is the longest period of sustained economic growth in Afghanistan's modern history. Afghanistan of course is still a poor country, but it now has a functioning economy and good prospects for future development. Afghanistan had no effective financial system in 1991; today there are 14 banks in operation. As a result, Afghan expatriates can safely send money back to their families. In 2007 Afghanistan received some $3.3 billion in remissions income. School enrolment is at its highest in Afghanistan's history. Currently, there are approximately six million students in school, including two million girls. By contrast, under the Taliban there were 900,000 students enrolled in school, none of whom were girls. Basic health services, which were available to less than 10 per cent of the population under the Taliban, are now extended to around 85 per cent of Afghanistan's people. There has been a 22 per cent drop in infant mortality, which means that there are now 40,000 fewer infants dying than there were in the Taliban era. Ninety per cent of children were not inoculated against polio; today, that has changed. Almost 10,000 kilometres of rural roads have been rehabilitated, supporting the employment of hundreds of thousands of local workers. Under the Taliban there were virtually no private telephones in Afghanistan; today over two million people have mobile phones and that number is growing by an extraordinary 150,000 a month.

All of these things have brought real, concrete, measurable improvements to the lives of the ordinary people of Afghanistan. They did not happen by magic. They happened because the new government of Afghanistan, for all its many and very obvious failings, has worked with its international partners and donors to make them happen. These gains were made possible only by the continuing presence of the ISAF forces, including our own forces in Oruzgan province, and future gains are dependent on that presence to maintain security. That is why I do not think we should take the advice of Brigadier General Mohammad Zafar Khan and depart now, leaving our equipment behind. Putting aside the various questions that arise about maintenance, technical capacity and sustainment of such equipment, we must also remember that Australian forces in Afghanistan comprise less than one per cent of the total ISAF forces in the country. At 1,550 personnel, the Australian commitment is a small one. When we withdraw it will be in agreement with the Afghan government and with our ISAF partners. We do not need to understand that the Taliban have not changed their policies or their priorities. If they return to power they would reimpose the same barbaric reign of ignorance and fear that they imposed when they were in power from 1996 to 2001—a period that ended with the bombing of the World Trade towers in New York and the unleashing of a global conflict.

I would like to think that it is not senators who argue we should withdraw from Afghanistan and then have to ask, 'Now what?' But I have to say that I have not heard any of them utter a word of concern for what would happen to the people of Afghanistan, and particularly the women of Afghanistan, if they had their way. All their considerable capacity for moral outrage seems to be focused on the US and its allies with none on the forces of reaction that we are fighting against. For them it seems the war in Afghanistan is 'a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing'. That is a quote from Neville Chamberlain and, yes, I do compare those who seek to appease the Taliban and al-Qaeda now to those who sought to appease fascism in the 1930s. I do not claim to understand this mentality, but I do understand its moral bankruptcy.

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

I rise tonight to make some comment as to why we should be withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan as a matter of urgency. The question that needs to be asked here is this: is it morally justifiable to lose more Australian lives in a military campaign that is unwinnable, in a situation where Afghanistan is likely to look much as it does today when, in a few years time, we eventually do as the Americans intend to do, and that is withdraw in 2014? Is it morally justifiable to lose more Australian lives in these circumstances?

I have been listening tonight to the kinds of contributions that just do not go to the detail of what is going on in Afghanistan. I have just heard Senator Feeney say that other people are not concerned as he is about Afghani lives. Is that so? I can tell you that there are currently 1.7 million to two million Afghani refugees in Pakistan. Next year, in 2012, they will lose their refugee status in Pakistan. That figure of 1.7 million to two million is probably an underestimate. Senator Feeney, who has just contributed in this debate, of course would not have those refugees come to Australia. Australia is quite happy to be engaged in a war in Afghanistan for all the reasons that he cites, but millions who are over the border will lose their status as refugees next year—and what then? What then about those Afghani people who have been forced to leave because of the dislocation, the war—all of the things that have been discussed and the atrocities that have gone on over many years? I heard from Senator Johnston tonight that this is a most noble and legitimate cause. Really, a noble and legitimate cause! And from the Prime Minister we have heard, 'We will complete our mission of training and transition.' What transition? I think it is about time we talked about what is really going on in Afghanistan as we speak.

I have heard Senator Abetz and now Senator Feeney both talk about the fact that there has been a whole explosion in cell phones in Afghanistan. According to the Washington Post, every evening the cell phone signals disappear in some portion of more than half the provinces in Afghanistan as the major carriers, under pressure from the Taliban, turn off their signal towers, effectively severing most of the connections to the rest of the world. Tactics like the cell phone offensive have allowed the Taliban to project their presence in far more insidious and sophisticated ways in 2011 using the instruments of modernity that they once shunned. The shut off sends a daily reminder to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Afghans that the Taliban still holds substantial sway over their future. It is just one part of a broader shift in Taliban strategy that is focused on intimidation, carefully chosen assassinations and limited, but spectacular, assaults. While often avoiding large-scale combat with NATO forces, the Taliban and their allies in the Haqqani network have effectively undermined peace talks and sought to pave the way for a gradual return to power as the American led forces begin scaling back military operations in the country. That is the fact of the matter.

There is no way that Afghanistan is going to be significantly different in a few years time from what it is now. I go to the Haqqani network because we are told that the mission is to stop terrorism in Afghanistan—there must be no safe haven for terrorists in Afghanistan. That is quite right, except that we have got the Haqqani network now operative in Pakistan, with safe havens there, who come across the border into Afghanistan and are currently working with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was there recently saying that we need a peace process that brings together the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Karzai regime. Somehow, we are going to bring about peace in that regard.

In addition to that, according to the Washington Post, we now have 'uncertainty gnawing at Afghans about the looming American withdrawal, while making the most of the insurgency's limited resources'. It goes on to talk about the recent United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reporting on torture. Senator Feeney talked about the torture of children. Let me tell you: the torture of children is currently going on in facilities in Afghanistan with the allies we are working with, overseen by President Karzai's regime. We know from the United Nations report that suspects are hung by their hands, beaten with cables and in some cases their genitals are twisted until they lose consciousness in detention facilities run by the Afghan intelligence service and the Afghan National Police. This is according to a UN study released in October, as I said. The report found evidence of a 'compelling pattern and practice of systematic torture and ill-treatment' during interrogation in the accounts of nearly half of the detainees of the intelligence service known as the national directorate of intelligence who were interviewed by the UN researchers. The national police's ill-treatment of detainees was somewhat less severe and widespread, the report found.

The report pointed out that, even though the abusive practices are entrenched, the Afghan government does not condone torture and has explicitly said the abuses found by the United Nations are not government policy. They may not be government policy, but from the point of view of Afghani people what they can see is young people being rounded up, put into these centres and then tortured by the people who are supposed to be on the side of the Afghan people against the Taliban. It is no wonder that the Afghan people see an occupying force working with a corrupt Afghani government. And so we get to this point: is it true that training the Afghan army in Oruzgan will help build a stable, pro-Western Afghanistan? No, it will not.

I heard Senator Johnston talking about the elections that were held in Afghanistan, holding that up as some kind of progress in Afghanistan. But you just have to look at Transparency International's report that tracks government corruption around the globe. It ranks Afghanistan as the world's third most corrupt country, behind Somalia and Myanmar, or Burma. In the hundreds of diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and released in December 2010, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest official is a distinct outlier. The widespread corruption is made possible in part by the largely unregulated banking infrastructure and the ancient system of money transfer that is the method of choice for politicians, insurgents and drug traffickers to move cash around the Muslim world. Mr Karzai won re-election in 2009, but he did it by completely rigging the election and the results were overturned not long after. Of course, then there was the assassination of his younger half-brother, who was assassinated by a person working with the US special forces and the CIA.

There is also graft and corruption from the opium trade. We have a situation where the report to congress only a month ago stated that millions of dollars have been siphoned out of Afghanistan from US aid—and no doubt Australian aid. I will be very interested to know what tracking we have for the aid money that we are spending and how much of it is leaving Afghanistan through illegal sources and going elsewhere. In fact, in the US case they are saying that people associated with the Karzai government have used the money to buy luxury mansions in Dubai, for example.

So the Afghan people see a force that is working with the corrupt Karzai government against their interests and their own young people are detained and tortured in centres run by the very people we are mentoring and working with. It is time we set a date to come out of Afghanistan. It is time we recognise that the situation is unwinnable. Other countries have withdrawn. Australia should be withdrawing its troops because it is unlikely that there will be significant shifts in such a corrupt regime. The question here is: how much better would it be if we were not an occupying force but rather assisting in a capacity other than as an occupier?

Question agreed to.