Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, to be fair, it wasn't that. They said, 'We would get rid of all of the woke insert-expletive-here that is infecting the ADF.' These guys weren't officers but diggers—good, hardworking young diggers. Whenever I go on an ADFPP, I always search that sort of person out, because they will sock me in the face and tell it to me straight as to what their views are about where the ADF might be going wrong. They will always tell me honestly. It wasn't, 'Spend more money here or there.' It was, 'Get rid of all this woke BS insert-expletive.'

Morale is an all-time low. Under this government, we are now 5,000 personnel under strength in our full-time ADF. This government and this Minister for Defence, under the DSR, gutted the order for infantry fighting vehicles from 450 down to 129. They gutted two-thirds of the order for infantry fighting vehicles. What does that say to a digger? That says: 'We don't value you. We're going to send you out but not give you the protection that you deserve.'

Why else is morale so low, apart from the gutting of the order for infantry fighting vehicles? I've never served in the Army, but I reckon that, if I were ever in a firefight with an enemy, I'd want to know that there was some artillery that would back me up. What does this lot do? They scrap the planned second regiment of self-propelled howitzers. We don't need them, they reckon. The Minister for Defence may not need them but do you reckon the diggers will or might? Hopefully, they never will.

Do you know why else morale is so low? Funnily enough, ADF members read newspapers. When they read that this government doesn't back their naval personnel—like our naval aviators in the Seahawk that had China's People's Liberation Army Air Force dropping flares in front of their helicopter, putting at risk its crew—how do you reckon that goes down with ADF personnel? How do you reckon it goes down when the same thing happens with Navy divers off HMAS Toowoomba?

Morale is at an all-time low because our members of the ADF don't believe that this government has their back. It's interesting that the Minister for Defence isn't here, so it's good to see the Minister for Defence Industry is here. Chances are he's here because he's the only one who hasn't been caught up in this confusion about what's been going on in relation to personnel, but that's for another day. My question to you, Minister standing in for 'MinDef', is: what are you going to do to lift the morale of the ADF? At the moment it is appallingly low.

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