The Morrison government fast-tracked visas for 11 Afghan army officers who studied at Australian defence colleges after officials warned Peter Dutton a failure to help them would generate negative news stories, documents reveal.
A briefing to the defence minister, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, said the group was “of high profile and at considerable risk” of Taliban retribution.
In the document, written five days after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, a senior defence official noted there was already “substantial media attention” on the Australian government’s treatment of its former Afghan staff.
If the Afghan national army (ANA) officers who studied in Australia were not granted visas, “there is an increased likelihood of negative media attention as the window to evacuate closes,” the document said.
Advocates held grave fears that some of this group were left behind during the chaotic and dangerous evacuation mission, saying they are aware of two members and their families who made it to Australia. The departments of defence and home affairs declined to say how many of this group are in Australia now.
The newly released document sheds light on the difficulty of the last-ditch evacuation mission, which was launched after the fall of the Afghan capital to the Taliban in mid-August. It is likely to trigger fresh questions about why the government did not act sooner to fly out people who may have been at risk because of their connection to Australia.
In the briefing to Dutton on 20 August, a senior Department of Defence official raised concerns about the “particular risk” facing about 11 ANA officers who were either current or former students at Australian defence colleges.
The briefing also shows that the Department of Defence was being approached, at that time, “by large numbers of Afghan nationals with varying degrees of connection to the department and the ADF, seeking assistance to come to Australia”.
“Beyond our cohort of locally engaged staff who have been certified and who have, or are in the process of receiving, a visa, we believe that we owe the strongest obligation to this group,” the brief said.
The same day, Dutton agreed to sign a letter requesting that the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, grant emergency visas to the 11 officers and their families “to allow their expatriation during the current operation”.
Glenn Kolomeitz, a director at GAP Veteran & Legal Services, represented a range of people seeking help to leave Afghanistan, including former ANA officers who studied in Australia.
He said he was aware of two of this group who made it into Australia with their families.
“A couple of those and their families managed to secure visas and evacuations very, very quickly – more quickly than any of our other locally engaged employees, staff or any other of our Afghan clients,” Kolomeitz said.
He said that even in the middle of the evacuation “debacle” it was “positive that the government recognised the impact on our ADF members and our veterans of leaving these particular ANA officers who studied here with us to the hands of the Taliban for retribution”.
But he said veterans were genuinely concerned that there remained “plenty of locally engaged interpreters and others who worked for and with Australia who are in exactly the same position now”.
“We are leaving people behind who are at risk because of their work with us,” Kolomeitz said.
The ADF ended up flying 4,168 evacuees out of Kabul, including 2,984 Afghans with visas, in the second half of August. The government ramped up offers of emergency visas amid practical challenges with visa processing in Afghanistan at that time.
On Tuesday the Australian Council for International Development will urge the Australian government to provide at least $100m in assistance for Afghanistan a year, amid warnings that two in five children under the age of five face acute malnutrition.
“Afghanistan faces a total economic collapse,” the group’s chief executive, Marc Purcell, said.
Archbishops and bishops of the Anglican church of Australia have also written to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, urging him to approve a special additional intake of 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan to “demonstrate the compassion and commitment the Australian people expect”.
The letter points to evidence from the Department of Home Affairs that more than 145,000 individuals from Afghanistan have applied to Australia for help.
“We feel that providing only 15,000 refugee places over four years from within the existing program is not an adequate response for people for whom we fought and with whom we laboured,” the archbishops and bishops wrote.
“We continue to pray for all those who are displaced in our world, and that our Nation’s response will be as generous as possible.”
The Taliban last week retreated on a promise to allow girls to access education.
