Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. Does the minister acknowledge that it was a mistake to use a private contractor to repatriate our deceased soldier Private Kovco? Will the government now abolish the policy of using private contractors?

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. I join with the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and, I am sure, the opposition spokesman for defence in passing to the Kovco family my condolences for what they have endured since the death in tragic circumstances of Private Jake Kovco.

It is interesting that the average Australian would probably have thought until recently that Australia’s defence personnel, were they to lose their lives in deployment, would automatically be returned to Australia and repatriated by the Australian Defence Force. However, it is interesting and instructive and the House should be aware that up until 1966 it was in fact the policy of the Australian government that war dead, whatever the circumstances, would remain in the country in which they had died and be buried at the nearest war graves cemetery. Between the end of the Vietnam War and 1997, the policy which existed in the defence services was that each service would look after its own deceased defence personnel.

It was not until the eighties and the nineties that the policy became a combination, depending on circumstances, of the use of a civil contractor or indeed the use of the Australian Defence Force aircraft, in the main. In fact, in 1996, the policy which existed when this government was elected, in the Australian Army Manual of Land Warfare, Part One: The Conduct of Operations, which was dated 16 December 1996 and which is now obsolete, said: ‘Where possible, the back loading of remains to the Australian support area will be achieved under civilian contract arrangements, but it may be necessary for support groups to provide transport and establish temporary storage facilities.’

In the early hours of the morning following us discovering this appalling, terrible error, where the incorrect body had been dispatched from Kuwait to Australia, I said that these arrangements will change. I have instructed the Secretary of the Department of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Force to immediately ensure that the existing arrangements for the repatriation of any deceased Australian Defence Force personnel deployed are as stringently adhered to as is possible and that, wherever possible and/or practicable, we repatriate our deceased Defence Force personnel using Australian military aircraft and defence people.

In the meantime, as I also announced in the early hours of that morning, I have also asked that all of the options be made available for the government to consider at a whole-of-government level the full repatriation, directly under Australian control, using Australian Defence Force equipment, if that is possible, of our own deceased Defence Force personnel. As soon as those options are presented to me, they will be presented to the government for their full consideration.

The most important thing—which I have said to the Kovco family and which I say to the parliament and the Australian people—is that we must do everything we can that is humanly possible, whatever the economic commitment we are required to make, to see that this kind of error does not ever happen again.