Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It was the Prime Minister, who has left this chamber and walked out on a censure motion against him. What has happened to the standards of prime ministerial accountability and responsibility when this Prime Minister walks out on a very serious censure motion involving the incompetence, the ineptitude, of the Minister for Defence?

It is one thing for the Minister for Defence to blame his department for failing to pass on information; it is another thing for the minister to say to this House, as he did this afternoon:

I thank the member for her question. The simple answer is: because I was only aware of one of the calls.

Yesterday this minister led the House to believe that there was only one phone call from an anonymous woman who would not give her details, would not give her phone number and would not give her position. I am afraid that is not true. This minister engaged in email correspondence with the partner of one of the SAS soldiers involved in this pay scandal. There was not one woman without a name, without a phone number and without details. This woman wrote to the minister’s office and the minister replied personally to the email with her name, her email address and the most detailed description of the hardship that her partner had been put through. She described how difficult it was for them to make ends meet because of this pay scandal. On 11 February she wrote an email to the minister, to which the minister responded. She said:

All we want is to have a swift resolution to this issue. My partner is now considering leaving the Army and getting a job in another field. For someone who has always wanted to be in the Army and loved his job, it is a sad day when he considers leaving. I cannot believe that people further up the chain would want these highly-trained soldiers, which we have spent a lot of money on, leaving the Army because of this issue. We need a result and fast before more decide their only option is to leave.

Minister, you sent an email back to this woman. Minister, you told this House yesterday that you had had one anonymous phone call. You emailed this woman back and blamed someone else, and you said on 13 February, ‘I am aware this situation has not been handled well.’ Is that any response to the partner of an SAS soldier who is considering leaving the Army after a long and distinguished career because of your incompetence, your ineptitude, your inability to solve what is just an administrative problem? And this was not a computer glitch, Minister. That was another misrepresentation to this House. It was not a computer glitch; it was a bureaucratic decision that the minister could have overturned. It was a decision about pays that this minister could have fixed in May 2008 when the tribunal handed down its determination.

Minister, you said that you did not even know about this until it was raised in Senate estimates. The minister said that he thanked Senator Johnston for raising it in estimates; otherwise, he would not have known about it. This minister has to learn about a pay scandal from the opposition; otherwise, he does not know about it. Minister, there were many people who watched question time yesterday, including people to whom you owe a duty of care. Many people watched question time yesterday, Minister, and they heard you say that only one person had contacted your office and it was an anonymous call. You did not tell them about the partner of a soldier with whom you personally corresponded—‘Yours sincerely, Joel Fitzgibbon’—and you repeated today that you were only aware of one phone call. That is not true, Minister. There have been numerous emails, phone calls and contact not only with your office but also with the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel. And this was in the third question time in a row. Didn’t the minister go back to his office on the first day and say: ‘Show me what correspondence there has been. Have I written emails? I am brain dead. I do not know whether I wrote an email just a couple of days ago.’ Minister, you replied to this woman on 13 February. Minister, in the event—and if the Prime Minister were back here, I would bring it to the Prime Minister’s attention, but as the Prime Minister is not— (Time expired)

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