Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to give strong support to the motion moved forward by the member for Fairfax and note his commitment to furthering this issue. The motion has been put forward in five paragraphs. Paragraph (1) speaks to the general nature of what the honourable member is aiming to achieve, and paragraph (5) to the particular, which includes the submariners that all the other members have mentioned in their contributions. I will restate paragraph (1):

Recognises and commends service undertaken by all those who have served the Australian Defence Force and the people of Australia in the name of Australia.

I know that every member in this House from every political persuasion would support that very strongly, as we do. Paragraph (5), and this is really the nub of the motion, seeks to secure recognition in particular for the submariners—I would take it as all that flows for those who served our nation defending our national interest through the Australian Defence Force in all manner of operations—that have not to date attracted the recognition they so rightly deserve. There is a whole lot of history to this issue. As the honourable member and other members making contributions know, this matter did not arise yesterday. Many people have been seized with this matter over a number of years.

The particular class of personnel that the motion refers to were mentioned in the Clarke review. They were recommended for inclusion and, as the honourable member pointed out, they were not included to be picked up there. I note that the government has uplifted that from the Clarke review. I have not looked at that particular review for some time but I am advised it is recommendation 31 and that it talks specifically about service on submarines on special operations. That is what we are trying to achieve here. That work we are talking about is exacting, and I find it very difficult to conceive of being in a submarine. As has been said here, those who undertake that work are really special people. I want to honour the work that they do. They deserve absolutely every recognition that we can give.

I want to make special mention here of the nature of service review, which is still underway and gathering momentum. I know that, to those who have served, all of these things should have been resolved yesterday. But the fact is that the nature of service review is taken very seriously by all. As the honourable member for Fairfax said in his contribution, there is serious progress and hopefully there will be an ability to report some of the progress to the House. I want to make some points about the nature of service review, which was formed in July 2002 to address deficiencies in the process for determining the nature of service classification for ADF military operations. There are currently 91 claims before the nature of service review team covering 30 different periods of service. Resolution of these cases requires detailed research, including the extraction and examination of archived material. This can very time consuming, particularly since the nature of service review team has been directed to use the legislation in vogue at the time of the period of service in question, which stands to reason. Expedient administrative management of these cases, however, does not guarantee a quick resolution—and that is what we all want—as the majority of cases also require input from agencies outside of Defence and over which Defence has limited control. As a result, a specific time frame for completing each submission is not always feasible. In addition to the 91 externally generated representations, the nature of service review team is addressing five internally generated requests and 15 requests from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs for review of past operations activity. I commend the motion to the House.

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