Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Discipline Reform) Bill. I would like to start by acknowledging all the current and former ADF personnel and thank you all for your service to this country. We would not have the freedoms we enjoy today without you and what you have done in the past.

I was quite surprised when I was reading this bill that some of these issues had not been dealt with previously, in particular the streamlining of the judicial process. I was pleased to see that things such as cyberbullying will be addressed in the future. One very pleasing by-product of this legislation—and my friend the member for Reid knows all about this—is improved mental health. As a former defence lawyer, I sometimes became a little bit immune to my clients' feelings, including how they reacted to being accused of a charge or an offence. Even the slightest offence, which was dealt with by way of infringement notice, sometimes affected those people very heavily. Quite often those people were professional people who were going through tough times, who had made bad decisions or who had been falsely accused. The weight on their shoulders for long periods of time whilst they waited for their matter to be dealt with through the judicial process affected their mental health and their way of life for many, many months and, at times, for more than two years.

In relation to this amendment, a similar process was undertaken by the New South Wales Police Force almost 20 years ago, with minor offences dealt with by infringement. It was much to the furore of all the criminal lawyers, who thought they were going to lose work because people would plead guilty to the minor infringements and not receive criminal convictions or minor pecuniary impositions. What it did was streamline the system; it unclogged that backlog in the judicial process at the Local Court, the District Court and the Supreme Court. It worked exceptionally well. What it also did was give people an opportunity to accept responsibility without the stress or the delay and the expense of a Local Court hearing or a criminal trial at the District Court.

I was a little bit surprised to see that it has taken the ADF this long to implement what has been running for at least 15 or 20 years throughout the police jurisdictions across Australia. And it is exactly what the ADF personnel deserve. The vast majority of ADF personnel are high-functio8ning professional people. When they're accused of something, whether they've done it or not, they deserve the ability to deal with it quickly, not to have it hanging over their head. I know, in certain circumstances in the past, some ADF personnel, because of the system, were on restricted duties for many, many months. Being on restricted duties, being unable to do what you trained for, weighs heavily on your mental health. If you're married, if you have a couple of kids, and you're on restricted duties, you don't receive that overtime or those bonuses that you might receive in a specialist squad, and so that transfers through that person accused to his or her family, to the children, to the way the house operates. So this amendment pleases me greatly. Knowing that that by-product—that by-product being the mental health of serving ADF personnel—is addressed is very, very pleasing.

The act as it currently stands is complex in some areas and doesn't always delineate between severe and comparatively less serious infringements. There are two unfortunate side effects, as I've indicated. One is that minor breaches are dealt with by comparatively harsh penalties, which take a significant time to adjudicate and hand down. The second is that such infringements are potentially overlooked from an official capacity. Many senior noncommissioned officers and junior officers have reported having little confidence in the use of the summary disciplinary system because of its complexity. Its use has been in consistent decline, from 1,743 summary trials in 2009 to just 923 in 2019. Now, either we have fewer offences occurring—which is possible, due to the scrutiny—or those offences weren't being effectively dealt with by official means.

It's critical that breaches of discipline are resolved quickly, fairly and proportionately not only to fortify good order and fighting capability but also to maintain overall morale and reduce the adverse effects that delays can have on mental health. I've referred to the fact that the nervous wait to hear a verdict can sometimes be worse than the punishment itself, and I've certainly seen that over and over in the past 30 years. We have to have appropriate disciplinary action to ensure that we maintain an operationally capable Defence Force with the highest level of competence. And we do—we do have the highest level of competence in the ADF, and I'm sure, if you asked anybody in the street, they would tell you that they have high confidence in what the ADF do.

In order to remove these unnecessary administrative delays, the updated act will now have these three tiers, with progressively greater powers of punishment depending on the nature of the infringement. These tiers will allow authorities to identify the appropriate level of punishment more easily and effectively. Firstly, at the lowest level, is the disciplinary infringement scheme. This scheme enables minor breaches of discipline to be dealt with by the issuing of an infringement notice. Importantly, a disciplinary officer may impose a low-level punishment, such as a fine, extra duties, stoppage of leave or a reprimand, rather than a senior tribunal having to deal with it And that's one of the major points. You can imagine somebody who has made a mistake, who has done the wrong thing, being willing to effectively plead guilty just to get it out of the way, just to know 'I'm going to lose a week's leave or I'm going to be restricted in what I can do, but I'd rather it not be hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles', and deal with it appropriately.

The second tier is the summary system, which is presided over by summary authorities. It's like the adversarial court system. Many minor infringements currently fall into this tier unnecessarily. I referred to the system in the New South Wales Police, where, by implementing that infringement process, the court effectively cleared a backlog of 18 months to two years. We heard submissions today that over 90 per cent of people who have received infringement notices effectively plead guilty to them, pay the fine or take the punishment.

Of course, at the highest level, which must remain, superior tribunals comprising Defence Force magistrates, restricted and general courts martial will deal with serious matters which might result in dismissal from the ADF and punishment of imprisonment or reduction in rank. I do note that there are other offences that fall within the criminal jurisdiction; should a criminal offence take place, it is dealt with within the state or territory jurisdiction under that criminal jurisdiction in the district court or the Supreme Court.

It's good to note that, with times changing, the changes will also deal with cyberbullying. Just because the men and women of the ADF are perceived to be rough, tough and able to handle anything, it doesn't mean that they're not also subject to cyberbullying. Unfortunately, in my opinion, social media is a cesspool. I don't believe that our society is better off with social media. We've seen the horrible, terrible circumstances of people who have taken their own lives because of cyberbullying. Sadly, the ADF—just like every other workplace—is no different. As MPs, we're in constant contact with our constituents via our own social media pages. We all know, on a daily basis, some of the comments in there that I'm sure that person—that keyboard warrior—wouldn't say to our faces.

Whilst social media can be used as a good force in many ways, it also has that effect of harming mental health. It's pervasive most of the time, and you can't simply leave the room. So it's pleasing to see that this reform will enable authorities to hold to account those who would use social media for negative purposes against a colleague. Critically, it will allow early intervention; it's well documented that the longer these behaviours go on or persist that the more destructive they become in the future.

So it's pleasing that these amendments have been made; I'm confident that they will make the ADF, the judicial process and simply the environment in the ADF a much better place. Making these small and, in some circumstances, well-overdue changes will definitely make it less administrative and will free up the system. There will be faster resolutions, and the changes will mean more certainty for offenders, resulting in less strain on their mental health—which is critically important, particularly in the ADF, where they are under enough stress as it is. And the bill will introduce reforms to the use of social media which, sadly, is an influence that we must look at managing specifically in terms of its short- and long-term effects and its misuse, which can be inflicted not only on individuals but on a serving unit.

Again, I'm very pleased to commend these changes in the Defence Legislation Amendment (Discipline Reform) Bill 2021 to the House.

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