Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

It is disappointing that we have spent a number of days this week in this place talking about their internal issues. I know that they would be disappointed by that. There is no doubt in my mind that they would be disappointed that this series of events has caused them to be part of public debate in this country. I do not criticise the SAS soldier—I assume it was at an SAS soldier; Senator Johnston says it was an SAS soldier who came to him—for going to Senator Johnston. In fact, in a sense I thank him for going to Senator Johnston, because that made me aware of this problem earlier than I probably would have been. But I have to say that it would have been far more responsible for Senator Johnston to have come to me, instead of making a hero of himself in Senate estimates, and raised the issue with me to enable me to fix the problem.

This did not have to be a public debate. I know that Senator Johnston wanted his five minutes in the sunshine, a bit of publicity, because we do not hear all that much of him. I do not hear him talking about the white paper process, and I do not hear him talking much about Afghanistan, our most important deployment where our men are in danger on a daily basis. I put in place a reform program never before seen in defence in this country but there was not a word out of Senator Johnston. I would be very happy for Senator Johnston to criticise what I am doing in defence, because I am making some pretty tough decisions to ensure that we have less fat and less inefficiency and that all our money is going where it really counts—to the very people we are talking about today: the men on the front line putting their lives on the line for their country on a daily basis.

However, Senator Johnston does not want to talk about the appropriate use of force in the international framework, our strategic outlook or how we should respond as a country both in force structure terms and in capability terms. He does not talk about whether we need a balanced or a weighted force. He does not talk about how much capability we should have in Navy or Air Force compared with Army. We are not having that debate in this place because Senator Johnston has nothing to say—

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