Interview with Peter Stefanovic, Sky News

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Joining us live now is the Defence Minister Peter Dutton. Minister good to see you. Thank you for your time this morning. I know it’s a busy morning for you. First of all, can I get your reaction to the events overnight?

PETER DUTTON:

Well, just horrific scenes and we issued a warning at 6.15am yesterday advising people to go and leave Abbey Gate and to leave the Baron Hotel precinct. The intelligence had been building up and we were very conscious of obviously where our own people were, where Australian citizens and others were at the time and this has been a devastation. They’re just terrible scenes and obviously we grieve for all of those who are lost and injured, and our Australian soldiers have been working alongside those American soldiers. We’ve literally brought hundreds of people through the Baron Hotel to process them to enter into the airfield via Abbey Gate and to then board on to our planes.

We’ve had incredible success, really, with over 4,000 people that we’ve been able to lift, and the work of the Australian Defence Force, of DFAT, of Home Affairs has been remarkable, but I’m pleased that we were able to lift our people out not too long before this attack.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Okay, so just to confirm, have any Australians been killed or injured in the blasts?

PETER DUTTON:

We don’t have that advice yet in relation to who was out around that precinct, but I can confirm that no Australian Defence Force personnel or other Australian Government employee who had been part of this operation on the ground was injured or in that vicinity. We had wheels up on our last flight which contained obviously the Australian Defence Force personnel just before the attack and we’d been very conscious, the National Security Committee under the Prime Minister’s direction, had met constantly and taken the advice of the intelligence agencies here.

We’re just devastated, particularly for the US personnel who our people had been working alongside, right up until hours before this event – and they brought Australian citizens and visa holders through those gates – they provided the security cordon and they had worked hand in glove with our people and I know that our ADF personnel in particular will be devastated by what we’re seeing in Kabul at the moment.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

So those who weren’t able to get out, there is still the possibility that Australian citizens or visa holders may have been caught up in it?

PETER DUTTON:

Well, we just don’t know Pete. We had messaged – DFAT had done an amazing job to message out to Australian citizens, to those visa holders etc over the course of this operation. To get 4,000 people out in the circumstances where you had Taliban checkpoints right across the city is quite a remarkable achievement; but they had messaged out since the intelligence became clear to us that there was the likelihood of a terrorist attack or multiple terrorist attacks, and that advice was very clear – and that was saying people don’t come to the airport, don’t gather in large crowds, move away from the gates and I hope that people heeded that advice.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Yeah. That intelligence was incredible that you were able to get, and accurate in the end. So is the rescue mission now over, Minister?

PETER DUTTON:

It is Pete and I’m just so grateful for the work of the SAS, of our commandos, of those from our regiments, the DFAT staff, the Home Affairs staff, our ASIS people. Our intelligence picture was quite remarkable during the course of this operation. The way in which they’ve worked with the Americans, you know, there are no NATO forces or European forces or others who have provided security to keep the airport safe over the course of the last week or so. There have been 4,000 plus American troops there holding that airport along with the British troops who we’ve worked alongside and they have provided the stability.

Nobody would have got back to Spain, back to New Zealand, back to Australia, back to the United Kingdom, back to parts of Europe and the world otherwise without the support of the Americans. People are quick to criticise the US, but their efforts and their sacrifice here has been quite remarkable. We wouldn’t have lifted over 4,000 Australian citizens, visa holders, those that had helped save lives of our troops over the last 20 years, without those troops in Kabul and they are there still now as we speak. All we hope and pray is that they can be evacuated safely and be repatriated back to the United States.

The President has been very clear that ISIS-KP and those elements, who are much more extreme even than the Taliban to put it in perspective, they can expect retaliation, and rightly so, from the United of America. I think the President’s been very clear in his message to those people that have done harm not only to Afghan citizens and to others who have been at the airport but to the US troops as well. I think they should heed that advice before they contemplate their next form of attack.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Will Australia help the US in its retaliatory attacks?

PETER DUTTON:

Well, Australia’s worked alongside the United States in every major battle in modern history and we will continue to work with the American allies. We have no better friend in the world and we have no better guarantee of peace for our own country than our friendship with the United States. We’ve stood by them through thick and thin, and we’ll continue to do that into the future – and of course today we grieve for those American soldiers, those patriots, those brave individuals who have lost their lives; without them we wouldn’t have saved Australian lives and I’m incredibly grateful to the relationship and we will do whatever we can with the United States to keep our respective people and interests safe and secure. We’ve been clear about that over a long period of time, and we will not deviate from that path.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Have you been asked yet?

PETER DUTTON:

No. I mean Pete, their focus now is on making sure that they secure the evacuation of their own people.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Sure.

PETER DUTTON:

And that is something that if we can feed into in terms of an intelligence picture, we will do that, but the US has obviously significant assets, the Brits as well, and you know frankly, we wouldn’t have been able to access the Baron Hotel where those hundreds of people have been processed without the support of the British.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Sure.

PETER DUTTON:

I’m incredibly grateful to Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary in the UK, to Secretary Lloyd Austin in the United States as well, for their forbearance and their assistance and I’m just grateful that we’ve had such success in the operation and, importantly, particularly from my perspective, that the Defence Force personnel have been wheels up and they’re safe at our base in the UAE at the moment.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

I know you mentioned that you just don’t know if any Australian citizens or visa holders were caught up in the blasts, but do you know how many remain, how many that you weren’t able to help?

PETER DUTTON:

Well Pete, we need to do a reconciliation with all of our partners. We know that some locally engaged staff, for example, made multiple applications – so not just to Australia, but to the Brits, to the Netherlands, elsewhere – and we know that they’ve accepted some of those offers ahead of the offer from Australia. The circumstances were so dire on the ground, it’s just very different to quantify where some of those people have ended up.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Yeah.

PETER DUTTON:

The first uplift, those pictures that have been seared in our minds of that C-17 of the Americans, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people, we don’t know yet whether some of those people were on board that flight. So I think it will take some time to work that out. But I think it’s quite remarkable the numbers that we’ve been able to lift, and the work of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Affairs Minister and others in the National Security Committee, the Chief of the Defence Force, all of our people who have been working around the clock has been quite remarkable. I think it’s a great credit to our country, frankly, firstly, that we were able to remove our personnel from the Embassy and close the embassy in May of this year. There were elements of the media in our country that criticised that decision, but that was ahead of what we’ve seen over the course of the last week. We were able to uplift over eight and a half thousand Afghans over the course of the last eight years and of course, just since April, literally hundreds of those locally engaged staff came out well ahead of this current operation – and the success that we’ve enjoyed to get 4,000 people out is just beyond remarkable, really. The acts of bravery from our personnel that will become apparent, I think, in the coming weeks and months I think Australians will be incredibly proud of.

But many of these people now, these Afghan citizens, visa holders and Australian citizens, are on their way back home or are staging in the Middle East at the moment to be returned on flights and that will take place over coming days as well.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Okay. I know there’s still – it’s a very fluid situation here and you’re still seeking answers, too, but with the mission over now, if there are Australian citizens left behind and if there are visa holders who are still there who haven’t been able to, let’s say, hitch a ride with another country, what options are available for them?

PETER DUTTON:

Well Pete, some people will be trying to make their way to other borders to exit through Pakistan or other decisions that they will make based on their own circumstances. I hope that countries like China, who seem to have a close relationship with the Taliban, that they can see a return of, you know, domestic flights or international flights, those commercial flights, as soon as possible. There are different options. But at the moment it’s a war-like situation, let’s be very frank about it and clearly we’ve been issuing warnings to people not to travel to Afghanistan for a very long period of time, but it’s quite remarkable the numbers that we’ve been able to lift. So I hope that we can provide whatever assistance we can, but we need to be realistic about the circumstances on the ground.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

Yeah, and just finally Minister, there’s shades of Iraq here. Did the world just get a hard lesson on what happens when vacuums are created?

PETER DUTTON:

I think what the world has seen is the might of the United States, and without that I don’t know who else we fall back to. The fact is that the Kabul airport would not have been secured without those US and British troops. I think we should all be very grateful for the successes that we’ve had, the numbers of people that we’ve brought out, particularly the young women and children. The remarkable success that our troops and DFAT and Home Affairs have had in bringing people through that airport, as I say, would not have been possible without the United States.

There’s a generation now of young women who have been educated and saved in Afghanistan because of the efforts of the United States and her allies.

For our country, for our soldiers, not only the brave actions that we’ve seen over the course of the last week, but over the last 20 years, some 39,000, including 41 who tragically lost their lives, they have worked tirelessly over that period to keep our country safe. There would have been the sort of terrorist attacks that we’re seeing in Kabul now on our own soil if it wasn’t for the efforts of our troops over the last 20 years.

I think all Australians should pause to be grateful for that work, not only those that have served in Afghanistan, but in Iraq as well. We honour their service, and I am incredibly proud of the work of the Australian Defence Force over this period. I’ll be saying a lot more about that in the coming months to make sure that they themselves and their families and loved ones very clearly hear that message – that our nation is incredibly grateful for their service, their sacrifice and the fact that they have fought and in some cases lost their lives. Their own lives have been changed for the worse forever in helping to keep our people safe in our country and Australians should never take that for granted and should never forget it.

PETER STEFANOVIC:

All right. Defence Minister Peter Dutton there. You’ve got a busy morning, but appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much. And appreciate you sticking around while we waited for those remarks from the US President Biden.

PETER DUTTON:

Thanks Pete.

[ends]