Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Canning on raising this motion in tribute to the 26,000-odd cadets in Australia. It is a subject close to my heart. When we were in government I had responsibility for the cadets in my role as Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support. Unfortunately, we had some tragic circumstances during that time with the death of a young cadet, Nathan Francis, and the circumstances around that and what was revealed did highlight a number of issues and deficiencies around administrative aspects through Comcare inquiries and whatnot. It was an opportunity to go back and do bit of a root-and-branch assessment of what we wanted out of the cadets and what the cadets should be. I was very proud to have been able to institute in August 2008 an overarching inquiry into the cadets, headed up by an outstanding former officer of the Australian army, Lieutenant General Frank Hickling, who I had been fortunate enough to work with while I was in the Army.

He did a tremendous job in doing that review. They took over 200 submissions from community organisations and produced that report on 24 November 2008. It was a very useful submission indeed. One of the things we were looking at, of course, was not only these technical issues around command and control, legal liability and accountability but also what should have been the overall purpose of this organisation. Is it just a vehicle for training people to move into the ADF or is it a personal development mechanism? I think the answer to that in the examination that took place highlighted that we should be focusing on the development of these kids in particular and that it's a wonderful opportunity to do that. We had about 27 different reviews and studies of cadets in the lead-up to this review by General Hickling, and they had all gathered dust on the shelves. Nothing had ever been done about them. So I was pleased to say that we collaborated with the coalition in 2011 to produce an amendment to the defence legislation to address some of those issues and to follow through on what General Hickling had done.

In particular, there was an anomaly in the way that cadets were being managed in that the CDF actually had no ultimate command responsibility for the cadets. It was obviously a legacy thing that hadn't been picked up in the overall reform of the joint organisation of the ADF that had taken place in other areas. That was all about accountability and command and control, and an amendment that was produced in 2011 addressed that. Apart from making sure that that would happen from a practical point of view, we then moved forward to connect the cadets with the reserve command structure as well. That was quite appropriate because, as you'll find, nationally a lot of these cadet units are attached to or associated with reserve units, which helps to embed them within the community, often supported by RSLs and the like. So there is a wonderful synergy there in relation to their involvement with the community, and the support, as members have flagged, that they provide to commemorative events and the like is important. It's important for them to learn our history and our values and what those before them have stood up to defend.

So that serves that purpose, but more to my thinking is the positive benefit we get out of teaching these kids that, yes, the nation should provide you with certain things, but you all owe something back to the nation. This is a way of encouraging that mindset. I think we still greatly need that and ways of revisiting that concept today. It also teaches them the concepts of leadership and teamwork, which are so important across several aspects of life—all aspects of life, in reality. It was also a wonderful mechanism for introducing kids to the concept of an ADF career. We have certainly had an amazing success rate of translating cadets into defence careers. In 2011, about 57 per cent of officers in the Air Force had come through the air cadets. That's an important contribution that it has also made. I would hope we can work on that model. The Young Endeavour program is another example of these sorts of activities.

But I really do think we need a broader scheme. When we look at the issues we're having around the nation on disengagement of youth, apathy, youth suicide and these issues, we need to look at these kinds of frameworks and make them more ubiquitous and more national. We need to give our kids the opportunity to self-discipline themselves, make the most of themselves, look outside themselves and see how they can contribute to the broader society. I salute the cadet movement and those who have children in their care and as mentors doing a great job.

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