Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We are walking down this path and doing so in a careful, slow and calibrated way. As I said, from 1 July, with those conditions in place around having been a permanent resident for a year at least and the appropriate security checks, if you are from New Zealand you will be able to join the Defence Force. From 1 January, that will be extended to other Five Eyes countries. In the future, we are having an eye to the Pacific. That is what we are doing. But what we learned from the question that has been asked by the shadow minister and from the interjection of the Leader of the Opposition now is that there are no bounds that they won't cross in order to run a scare campaign and blow any single whistle that they can find!

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