Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Defence Legislation Amendment (Security of Defence Premises) Bill 2010. The Minister for Defence said in his second reading speech on 29 September that Defence is the largest Commonwealth landholder, and one of the largest landholders in Australia. He made the point that the department manages an estate consisting of in excess of three million hectares of land around 88 major bases or facilities and has approximately 370 owned properties and a further 350 under lease.

During the last campaign, and for some months prior thereto, I had a map of my electorate on the wall, and more than one person asked me what a grey little area in my electorate was. It was a very large area inside my electorate, and I had to explain on each and every occasion that it was the RAAF base at Amberley. This is a very large part of my electorate of Blair. Indeed, there are about 3½ thousand personnel and civilians working at the RAAF base at Amberley. It is the home to C17s and F111s, which will retire in early December this year. The Super Hornets are also currently located there, and we will get additional Super Hornets in the future. It is the home to 9FSB and the construction squadron, which will arrive very shortly.

There are many people who work on that base, civilian as well as military. There are men and women, young and old, some who have been trained in defence hand-to-hand combat and many in how to use a weapon. But, still, despite every attempt that we undertake to ensure that our Defence bases are as ready as possible with security and to be as vigilant as we can be in the protection of those bases, the Holsworthy incident clearly demonstrates that the review was timely and that acting on the review is the appropriate thing for the federal government to do.

I am not going to comment on the litigation and charges that are currently before the Supreme Court in Victoria but, clearly—and this is the reason I support our troops in Afghanistan—we must resist all forms of fundamentalist fascism, narco-terrorism and Islamic extremism, which were clearly evident in what we saw at the Holsworthy base. Innocent people would have been slaughtered if these people had been able to carry out their plans. Defence bases are clearly attractive targets for enemies of our state and our nation. Making sure that they are protected is crucial, not just for the economic wellbeing of our country—the bottom line for the approximately $26 billion that we spend on defence every year—but for making sure that men and women, our fellow citizens, are protected.

The Review of Defence Protective Security Arrangements was carried out subsequent to the Holsworthy incident in August 2009. A number of individuals were arrested, as I said, for allegedly planning an attack on that army base. There is no proposal to change the fact that civilian police and security personnel who are civilians will still have the primary responsibility for responding to security incidents at Defence premises. That is appropriate, and it has been a bipartisan approach taken regardless of which side of politics has been in government. But I warmly welcome this legislation, because it clarifies that appropriately trained and authorised members of the Australian Defence Force can use force—indeed, lethal force—to protect life or prevent serious injury to themselves or others in the event of an actual attack on Defence premises or people on those premises. I think that clarification is the appropriate word for it because, if you asked the Australian public or asked any judicial officer in this land, I am sure they would think it appropriate to defend yourself against an attack if you were military or civilian personnel on a military base.

Of course, the key recommendation here was to clarify the legal issues surrounding ADF members acting in self-defence in the event of a no-warning attack. We have legislation in criminal codes dealing with circumstances where someone has the right to self-defence. We have provocation listed as a defence or partial defence in the event of someone who is a civilian being attacked. For example, if the member for Oxley were to get up here and start attacking me, it would be appropriate—and I think most people would think so—for me to defend myself against him.

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