Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. Can the minister confirm that on his recent visit to Afghanistan he made a speech to the seriously injured troops not once but twice, and the only reason he went back for a second time was that he forgot to mention the Prime Minister in the first speech?

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I am delighted to confirm for the House that, fortuitously, I was able to recently visit the injured troops in Taran-Kowt. I was fortunate to be in the region, travelling through Dubai on my way home from Gallipoli, where I delivered the dawn service speech and other speeches. I went to Taran-Kowt also, of course, to pay my respects to Lance Corporal Jason Marks, who lost his life only days before.

It is true that I visited the wounded troops in the hospital and it is true that I did so twice—for a very, very good reason. I spoke to the injured soldiers once and then received a phone call from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister asked me to extend his best wishes to the injured soldiers. As you would expect, I returned to the hospital and extended, on his behalf, the Prime Minister’s best wishes. I am very surprised that the opposition would seek to make political capital from the defence minister’s visit to a fallen soldier and to other soldiers severely woun-ded defending our country in the most dangerous of circumstances. Shame on them!