Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, you should know better than to speak out of turn. Yet even in the Greens policy it says quite clearly:

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown wrote to Minister Tanner earlier this year to urge him to re-consider the government's response to the Matthews' review and revise the indexation for Defence Force superannuation pensions. We strongly believe that the Government should now act to provide wage-based indexation on the same terms as the Aged Pension …

That is straight from the Greens policy, and yet when we put forward a private member's bill in the Senate, the Greens voted it down. They voted against their own policy. That is how disingenuous the coalition partner of the Labor Party, the Greens, are. Bob Brown said, 'We can't afford it.' The government said it will cost $175 million; we need savings. As part of the private member's bill that was taken up in 2011 to index DFRDB pensions, $300 million worth of savings were found over the forward estimates by reducing the increase in the public service from 12.4 per cent to a miserly 8.4 per cent—a fairly strong increase nonetheless—but there was a four per cent decrease in the growth of the public service within the Department of Defence. That was yielding about $300 million worth of savings—twice the amount of savings needed to pay for the coalition's DFRDB policy. And still the Greens—and, indeed, Senator Xenophon—voted against it. The government said the savings were not real and then three or four months later the Minister for Defence stood up and said, 'I'm here to announce $300 million worth of savings by tapering off the increase in the public service, taking out a piece of work, almost 100 per cent. The level of disingenuousness of this government is completely and utterly staggering.

We believe in the unique nature of service. If I look at the Alliance of Defence Service Organisations in the inquiry of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee on the coalition's bill, the Alliance of Defence Service Organisations stated:

In no other calling, occupation or profession has the State the power to accept or demand the surrender of these rights. The Unique Nature of Military Service deserves unique solutions and also places a great burden on the Government as the "employer” to ensure that ADF members are looked after both during and after Service.

The RSL further said as a submission to the Senate inquiry:

An examination of legislation for the Australian Defence Force shows that in almost all respects, the Parliament has been consistent since Federation in regarding the nation's armed forces as a separate and quite distinctly different part of Australian society.

We agree with them that the military is required to do a range of actions on behalf of the nation and that that service is unique. We believe in the unique nature of military service. We accept the concept of the unique nature of military service. We have seen it in action. We have experienced it. We have committed to it, which is why we once again commit upon government that we will fairly index the DFRDB.

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