Howard was ready to say ‘no’ to Afghan deployment, papers reveal
The Howard government refused to send Australian Defence Force personnel to Afghanistan to train their soldiers to clear mines because it thought it was too dangerous, newly declassified cabinet documents reveal.
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The Howard government refused to send Australian Defence Force personnel to Afghanistan to train the country’s soldiers to clear mines because it thought it was too dangerous, newly declassified cabinet documents reveal.
The 2002 cabinet papers released by the National Archives are dominated by the War on Terror launched in the aftermath of 9/11 and the establishment of offshore processing for asylum seekers in the wake of the Tampa crisis the previous year.
The papers reveal that while the Howard Government was supportive of American requests for assistance in the War on Terror, it was also prepared to say no.
In September 2002, Cabinet’s national security committee rejected a request from the ambassadors from the US, UK and Turkey for money towards the Turkish leadership of the International Assistance Force in Afghanistan and for help in training the Afghan National Army.
Australia had taken part in the overthrow of the Taliban regimen in 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11, but by late 2002 it was drawing down forces there.
In response to the request, the Committee debated sending a team to help train the Afghan National Army to clear the thousands of landmines littering the country, many dating from the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, but in the end rejected the idea because it was too dangerous.
The Committee concluded “the high operational threat environment in Afghanistan (including Kabul) combined with ongoing uncertainty regarding the command and control of ANA training organisation and security arrangements would make many contribution … a ‘high risk endeavour’”.
By then the focus of the War of Terror had shifted to Iraq, with planning under way for the US-led invasion which began in March 2003.
But by 2005 the security situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated so much that Australia agreed to send ground troops back into the country to support the regimen.
They would stay there for the next 16 years until the last left in June 2001.
Back in 2002, the Cabinet discussed what to do about David Hicks, the Australian detained by the US at Guantanamo Bay.
Hicks, who had been captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 after fighting for the Taliban, was being held as an enemy combatant at the US military base in Cuba.
In February Cabinet was told by the Attorney-General Philip Ruddock that in the government’s opinion, his detention was legal.
It was then agreed the Australian Government would wait for American legal processes to be completed before making any “final determination” of the options for prosecuting him in Australia.
Cabinet was also keen to make sure the Government was on the same page as the Bush Administration in public statements regarding Hicks, agreeing “on the need for consistent public positions” with the US and directing Mr Ruddock to create an “aide-memoire in further consultations with United States authorities”.
It also decided to approach the international tribunal dealing with war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia to see if it had anything on Mr Hicks from the time he had spent fighting with the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Hicks would spend another five years Guantanamo Bay with his predicament increasingly a cause célèbre for the Left causing a headache for Howard Government.
He eventually returned to Australia in 2007 after pleading guilty to a charge providing material support for terrorism, which was later overturned on appeal.
The rising risk of a terrorist attack in the region led in September to the National Security Committee being briefed by the Chief of the Defence Force Peter Cosgrove on steps the ADF was taking to enhance security at diplomatic and military establishments in East Timor in the light of intelligence suggesting a “credible terrorist threat” in the country.
But when terrorists struck a month later it was not East Timor but a thousand kilometres west in Bali in Indonesia when Jemaah Islamiah detonated two bombs in Kuta killing 202 people, including 88 Australians.
The papers related to the Bali bombing are limited to a partially redacted minute from the briefing given to cabinet’s national security committee two days later.
The committee, which received briefings from the Minister Justice Chris Ellison, as well as the heads of the Office of National Assessments, ASIO and the AFP, and agreed the government should immediately set-up a taskforce “to advise Ministers on the adequacy of Australia’s existing counter-terrorism legislation” and whether resources needed to be beefed up.
It also agreed Australia should “supplement as required, the existing mortuary facilities on Bali, to ensure the best possible conditions for the preservation of remains and the identification of victims of the attacks.”
This was actioned quickly and within hours five refrigeration trucks were on their way to Indonesia.
The committee agreed to send a mission to Jakarta led by Mr Ellison and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and including the heads of the ASIO, ASIS, and the AFP, should “as soon as possible to propose to the Indonesian Government the immediate establishment of a joint Australia-Indonesia taskforce to investigate and bring to justice the perpetrators of the attack.”
Four days later AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty signed an MOU with his Indonesian counterpart to create the joint taskforce by which point there were already 21 Australian police on the ground in Bali.
COST OF KEEPING US SAFE AFTER 9/11
Australia’s involvement in the new war on terror after the September 11 attacks created significant budgetary pressures at home and marked a major turning point in the country’s defence doctrine.
Never-before-seen cabinet documents reveal the extent of the Howard government’s focus on acquiring new military capability in the wake of the terrorist attacks, as Australia joined distant conflicts.
The internal cabinet documents from 2002, released by the National Archives of Australia today, show how deploying forces to Afghanistan, enhancing domestic counter terrorism capability and intercepting asylum seekers on unauthorised boats led to a crunch on the federal budget.
While most of the additional costs were offset by other savings made at the time, the documents shed new light on how deteriorating international safety sparked a major rethink of Australian defence.
Many parallels can be drawn with today, as Labor finalise a new Defence Strategic Review that will reshape the country’s defensive strategies in a new period of international turmoil.
Former Howard-era Minister Amanda Vanstone said “one of the biggest changes” since 2002 was Australia’s relationship with China.
“Who would foresee 20 years ahead that we would be where we are now, and yet somehow in our defence spending we are meant to have that insight,” Ms Vanstone said.
A February 2002 cabinet submission by then defence Minister Robert Hill showed an un-budgeted $3.7bn had been spent on new operations at the time, including the deployment of up to 1550 ADF personnel to Afghanistan and the militarised atoll of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Australia also continued to focus heavily on relations in East Timor, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands.
A cabinet submission on the Timor Sea Treaty for joint petroleum exploration of the Timor Sea remains hidden from the public in the wake of the 2004 spying scandal.
University of NSW historian David Lee said 2002 marked a “turning away from the Defence of Australia strategic doctrine” that underpinned the country’s strategy since the 1980s.
Signs of the shift are evident in the cabinet papers, containing decisions on a new Foreign Affairs and Trade Policy, the establishment of the Special Operations Command and the pursuit of several new defence capabilities.
These included new striker fighters to replace the crumbling F-111 fleet, new Armidale-class patrol boats, Super Seasprite Helicopters and discussions of an overhaul of the Collins-class submarines.
POPULATION GROWTH ESTIMATE BLOWN OUT OF WATER
THE Howard government decided to resist widespread calls to set official population targets in 2002, despite high rates of growth that would eventually blow former Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock’s estimates out of the water.
Cabinet documents from May 2002 reveal how the Howard government moved away from developing formal population policy.
It instead chose to pursue “population-related policies” that would “encourage innovation and achieve improvements in the living standards of all Australians” and minimise poverty.
University of NSW historian David Lee said an overarching population policy had been on cabinet’s agenda since 2000. In April 2002, Mr Ruddock believed Australia’s population, then 19.7 million, would only grow slowly to reach 25 million by 2050.
Australia’s population exceeded 25 million in 2022 and may reach 35 million by 2050.
Prof Lee said commentators were advocating for mid-century population targets that varied between 20 and 50 million.
“Cabinet’s resistance to setting a population target was despite unanimous agreement of state and territory leaders that Australia needed to ‘decide what is the optimum population for Australia and how do we get there’,” Professor Lee said.
Former treasurer Peter Costello presented cabinet in April 2002 with an intergenerational report, predicting increased demand on health services and aged care due to an ageing population.
Amanda Vanstone, the Family and Community Services minister at the time, said frequent intergenerational reports were a “tremendously good idea” and did apologise for the Howard government’s position on population.
“You won't always be right looking 10, 20, 30 years ahead but you need to be conscious of where patterns might go,” Ms Vanstone said this week.
VANSTONE’S REGRET ON TERRORISTS
A former Howard Government minister says that drafting laws to strip Australian citizenships from people involved in terrorist organisations, even if they are born in the country, may have been a mistake.
As hundreds of 2002 cabinet documents are released for the first time, former senator and Howard-era minister Amanda Vanstone said the move was one of her bigger regrets.
“Apparently we agreed to take citizenship away from someone even if they were born here,” she said when asked if she had any regrets of the cabinet process in 2002.
“And I don’t remember that discussion, because that’s a really big decision.”
A cabinet document dated December 9, 2002, shows the federal government cabinet agreed to introduce legislation to create a “deprivation power” in Australia’s citizenship laws.
The laws meant an Australian citizen would be deprived of citizenship if convicted of a terrorism offence, even if they were born in Australia. It could only apply to people who also have citizenship in a second country.
The laws have been subjected to years of debate and the current citizenship cancellation powers were not passed until 2015 under the Abbott government to address concerns about Australians returning from fighting for ISIS.
Those laws were ruled invalid by the High Court earlier this year, but the Albanese government has vowed to restore the powers in order to deal with known Australian-born terrorists including Neil Prakash and Ahmad Merhi.
The government announced in October it will introduce its own citizenship cessation laws, which would empower a court, instead of a minister, to rule on whether a person should lose citizenship.
CHRISTMAS ISLAND BID TO KEEP ASYLUM SEEKERS FROM MEDIA
The decision by the Howard Government to build a detention centre on remote Christmas Island was motivated by a desire to keep asylum seekers from interacting with the media and refugee advocate groups, who might help them to escape.
Newly declassified papers from 2002 released by the National Archives reveal Cabinet was warned that if asylum seekers were allowed to roam free on the island “it would result in easy access between unauthorised arrivals, media and others” which could “contaminate the application process” and “invite attempts by groups to smuggle them to the mainland”.
The explanation is contained in a slew of newly declassified cabinet papers which deal with the building of the permanent facility at Christmas Island. The centre, which was designed to hold 1200 people and budgeted at $160 million, was beset by delays and cost overruns.
The reason why the facility was required at all, given the remote location of Christmas Island, was a mystery even to Cabinet members, according to former Minister Amanda Vanstone.
Speaking at the release of the documents, the former Immigration Minister, said there were questions asked by ministers about whether a “less extensive, less lockdown” option could be considered for Christmas Island.
“Someone would inevitably ask, why build it at all, they can’t go anywhere. I don’t know if any of you have been to Christmas Island, but there’s nowhere to go,” she said.
The Cabinet papers also show that in addition to restricting access to media the Government was growing concerned asylum seekers were refusing to do as they were told.
“Since 2000 the unauthorised boat arrivals population has become increasingly non-compliant,” Cabinet was warned in March 2002.
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