PM: Good morning. Our nation today is mourning the loss of a brave man, another brave man lost in the fight in Afghanistan.
We are mourning the loss of Sergeant Todd Langley, who was killed yesterday in Afghanistan. He was a Commando, one of the best of our best in the Australian Defence Force. He was a decorated soldier and a very brave man on his fifth tour of Afghanistan, having been deployed overseas on other operations as well.
As you've just heard from the new Chief of the Defence Force, he was a brave and exceptional soldier, very highly regarded by his mates and friends in the Defence Force.
Todd Langley was not just a soldier - he was also a family man, and there is a family in Australia today who is grieving his loss. This is for them a time of tears and a time of pain.
Today I want to say to them that we respect their desire for privacy, but we do want them to know that the nation stands with them during this time of incredible loss and grief and we honour the service of Todd Langley for the nation.
In addition, his regiment will of course feel this blow very keenly. It's not the first loss that they have seen in Afghanistan, so our thoughts, too, are with his mates; the mates he fought alongside; the mates he trained with; the mates he would have had a sense of family with. They, too, will be grieving his loss today and our thoughts are with them.
A second soldier lies wounded and our best wishes are with him for a speedy recovery. We obviously want him to understand we are thinking of him as he faces up to this time of pain and challenge and we are thinking of his family, too, who would have heard this news overnight that he is wounded, now in hospital receiving the best of care.
These are tough days for our nation in Afghanistan, and we've seen these tough days before and there will be tough days to come, but we are making progress in our mission in Afghanistan. Our mission is clear, our timeline is clear and we are making progress.
As we make progress I do want to say a few words about the special operations task group work that Sergeant Langley was pursuing in Afghanistan.
This work is vital to our mission in Afghanistan. It's hard, but it is work that is countering the insurgency. It is work that is eliminating safe havens. It is work that is detecting weapons stores. This is important work to give us the space and the time to train the Afghan National Army and to ensure that the people of Afghanistan are in a position to take over responsibility for security of their nation.
Today, I understand that on another day of loss, many Australians will be thinking to themselves, ‘why are we still in Afghanistan?' They would be feeling the weight of the toll of the number of causalities we have seen.
To those Australians, I offer this reassurance - we are very clear that our national interest lies in pursuing our mission in Afghanistan. We are very clear what that mission is. We are very clear about the timeline, about transitioning security leadership to the Afghan nation by the end of 2014, and we are making progress in that mission, as is so often spoken about by soldiers who have been there on the ground.
Can I conclude by saying on this very hard day, our loving thoughts are with the family and friends of Sergeant Todd Langley. Our thoughts too are with the soldier who is wounded and his family as they struggle with this news and as he receives medical care in Afghanistan.
I'll take questions on this matter.
JOURNALIST: Ms Gillard, you say that you are very confident in reassuring Australians that progress is being made in Afghanistan. Are you absolutely confident that that progress is permanent, that it's not able to be rolled back once we leave?
PM: When I spoke to the Parliament about our mission in Afghanistan last year I made this point particularly that the moment to transition particular areas in Afghanistan is when we are sure that the security gains are irreversible. I used the terminology then, and I'd repeat it today, that we shouldn't transition out only to have to transition back in, which is why as we pursue this mission and move towards transition we are training the Afghan National Army, we are training Afghan Police, we are working alongside them to assure ourselves that they have the capabilities to step up to the leadership of security in a particular area. And I remind again there will be no transition day - there will be a transition process as place by place security leadership moves to local forces.
JOURNALIST: When do you expect the Parliament to have its next debate, and what would you like the tone of that debate to be?
PM: I think the tone at the last debate was entirely appropriate. It was a very in-detailed consideration of our mission in Afghanistan, of our strategy there, a reflection on our losses but also a stock-take of our progress, and people expressed views from all perspectives and that's a good thing, in a democracy that's a good thing and this is the right place for those democratic expressions to occur.
So, the debate will be, obviously, in the second half of the year. It would be my aspiration to have it around about the 12-month mark, so it won't be a fixed anniversary day but around about the 12-month mark.
JOURNALISTS: (Inaudible)
PM: I'll go to David in the back and come forward to Paul.
JOURNALIST: We've lost another Commando, it follows Brett Woods.
PM: Yes, it does.
JOURNALIST: A particularly heavy toll on Special Forces. Australia has the third largest number of Special Forces in Afghanistan. Are we doing too much of the heavy lifting with this sort of work?
PM: We've made a determination as Government, as a nation, that being in Afghanistan is in our national interest. We have tremendous Special Forces. They are lauded around the world for their capabilities and as Prime Minister attending international events including the NATO Auspice Summit in Lisbon at the end of last year I've had many, many foreign leaders comment to me on the quality of our special forces. So, we should really be very proud of them.
We need them in the numbers that we have them in Afghanistan because they do take the fight up, push back the insurgency; they do clear areas that have been safe-havens for insurgents; they do find and detect stocks of weapons and improvised explosive devices that if they weren't found and seized could be used against our forces or against local people. So, the work they do is vital to the mission and that's why we have them there in the numbers that we do.
Paul?
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you accept that the only lasting solution is, in fact, a political solution and what can you tell us about the Americans discussions or negotiations with the Taliban?
PM: We've long said that in order to get a political solution, political discussions have to be part of what is pursued in Afghanistan, and as you would be aware former Secretary Gates and others from the United States have talked about political discussions with elements of the Taliban.
We need to be realistic here, in terms of progress with discussions with the Taliban. This is in its early days. We should anticipate that there will be setbacks along the way and we should also recognise that the impetus on people to come to the table in part depends on the success of the military mission.
That is, these two things need to work together - military pressure needs to be sustained, so we need to keep pursuing our mission in its current form in Afghanistan.
JOURNALIST: Sergeant Langley died on his fifth tour of Afghanistan. Is there a point at which an individual soldier has done enough for his country and shouldn't be put in harm's way again?
PM: This has to be a case-by-case assessment and discussion and it's not a discussion I have as Prime Minister, but properly the chain of command in the Defence Force has with members of Special Forces and members of the Defence Force generally. I met with a number of soldiers who have been to Afghanistan three, four, five times and they talked to me about their enthusiasm to go back again.
Now, not everybody would feel like that and that's why, of course, the command has to respond to the circumstances of an individual, and I think you've seen the new CDF, General Hurley, today make some remarks about that, but many of the people I've met with who have been on multiple occasions want to go again, want to keep pursuing the mission in Afghanistan. This is what they've trained to do, this is what they've determined will be their life's work - being out there in Special Forces, in danger, using the training and their elite skills.
So, I think our great admiration has to go to them, but that's their motivation, that's their life's work, it's what they want to do.
Well go, and come across.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, a question put to the CDF today about the toll of the (inaudible) insurgency, and the CDF replied that he wouldn't go into those details, that we would know about that in the wash-up. Well, history tells us that Australians are told very little about the circumstances of fights, fighting in Afghanistan, unlike in America, for example, where they're told a blow-by-blow description. Do you think that Australians are owed more information as to the battles that our soldiers get involved in, or is it that Australia just fears that the public would be against the conflict if they knew exactly what they were doing?
PM: I actually don't think it's any of those things, frankly. We're talking here about an operation that clearly there's caution about because of the circumstances in Afghanistan right now. So, there's always that security concern when we report the loss of a soldier and there is an operation which may have ongoing elements.
Then following, at a greater remove in time, when that immediate safety concern is not there any longer, there continue to be security concerns in the sense that, I think we can all, from a common sense perspective, understand; that if you go blow-by-blow through some of the operational manoeuvres that our Defence Force engage in in Afghanistan, that that information doesn't just go to your ears and the ears of Australians, that information also goes to -
JOURNALIST: -But my point is-
PM: -well, I'll finish my sentence - that information goes to people who mean us harm and they may learn something from having that information.
So I think there's just a proper operational set of reasons as to why there is some filtering, if you like, of information. I think people can accept that.
JOURNALIST: I think I'm suggesting there's more filtering on the Australian side than elsewhere in the world, and that Australia's involvement in Afghanistan is routinely not told and in fact that we only hear sometimes if some of the things that are going on, when certain people are awarded medals?
PM: I think you can understand that, too. When the nation comes together to honour an act of bravery, then people do hear the circumstances.
I don't think, in fact, there's probably a difference between us. I think you would understand there can be legitimate security reasons of an ongoing nature why details aren't given. I'm happy to tell as much of the story as can be told and I think it is important that Australians do understand the remarkable acts of bravery that people perform in Afghanistan, as well as the days of due diligence.
Of course there are the highlights, the remarkable acts of bravery like Ben Roberts-Smith, where we now know the story in a great deal of detail, but there's every day when our personnel in Afghanistan get up again and do a hard day in a difficult place, in danger, and every day I think we respect them for those efforts, and we do try and tell the story of that those days are like, and periodically, of course, journalists do get the opportunity to visit so they can help tell that story, too.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you've said that the transition will come and we're sure that security gains are irreversible; you've also given the date of 2014. Is it intellectually honest at this point, three years away from that, to say that in 2014 we will know that the security gains are irreversible? We could be more honest to say if that's the test, that they must be irreversible, but we simply don't know when there'll be transition.
PM: 2014 is of course the date that has been worked through. It's the desire of the Government of Afghanistan, and President Karzai has spoken of that date, and then at the NATO Auspice Summit in Lisbon, and at other strategic meetings there has been discussion of 2014 as the timeline, and of course people are identifying that timeline because the best of advice to them is that the mission can be completed in that timeline and that that accords with the best of advice to me.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, beyond 2014, you've suggested in the past we'd be involved in Afghanistan for a decade, or decades. Is that still your vision?
PM: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
I've spoken to Parliament last year, and I've spoken on other occasions about how the nature of our involvement will change, but we should anticipate being involved in Afghanistan, assisting with capacity building and in other ways, to the end of this decade, at least.
I have spoken clearly about the training mission we're on, the aim of having local Afghan forces step up to security leadership of their country. I've spoken as well, that ultimately the work of building the nation of Afghanistan must be the work of the Afghan people, but we can assist them with that work and we will. We will have an ongoing partnership with Afghanistan.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on the carbon tax-
PM: -I won't take any other questions.
JOURNALIST: In 2009, the timeframe in Afghanistan was updated to three to five years, so that is 2012-2014 that withdrawal will happen. Is it still possible it will happen before 2014, from next year?
PM: The transition will happen place by place, area by area, so it will be a process and obviously when we use the date, the end of 2014, we are looking to full transition by that time, though as I've just answered to Chris's question, we will stay engaged in a partnership with Afghanistan.
JOURNALIST: So the withdrawal could start happening 2012, next year?
PM: I think it's important to use the word transition, because it gives the right sense that we are not talking about a day when people step back and everybody leaves - that is not what will happen.
What will happen is within the province where we work, within Oruzgan province, place by place, so various bits of the province, place by place security leadership will move.
So, that's the process that we're going to be going through. We've always said, and I'm happy to restate it now, that Oruzgan province will not be one of the first to transition, or have any part of a transition, but we are working, training, so transition can start place by place in the province that we work in and so transition has fully happened by the end of 2014.
I'll make this the last question.
JOURNALIST: What's the transition timeframe for the Special Forces? Is that different to training issue?
PM: Special Forces need to be there working alongside soldiers who are doing the training. So, their mission needs to keep - sorry, I'll put it differently. They need to be there as part of the mission that we are seeking to equip.
JOURNALIST: They could be there longer than 2014?
PM: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying our mission is clear and the timeline is clear and Special Forces will continue to be involved in delivering that mission on that timeline.
Thank you very much.