Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Seasprites! A billion dollars worth and we still do not know whether we are going to see the project through or not. And the best Defence can say is if we decide to scrap the Seasprite project then we might be able to recoup a little of the money selling off spare parts. That counts for good financial management, does it—a billion dollars for a project that you do not know you are going to see through? If that is good financial management, heaven help this country if this government continues. They are squandering money all over the place. It is a bit like the $10 billion water plan that does not have to be checked off by Finance or go to cabinet. It is $10 billion and you just do a quick run-your-eye-over, back-of-the-envelope calculation and that is good enough.

We have submarines that cannot go underwater, helicopters that cannot fly, a whole organisation that cannot keep its eye on its other assets and rocket launchers that get stolen. This is a complete financial shambles and incompetence. You do not know how to manage the system. This is completely stupid. When Senator Hutchins asked the minister for finance what was happening under the Financial Management and Accountability Act—something that you would think the minister for finance would know about, in terms of penalties—he said, ‘That’s a matter for Defence.’ That is not good enough when it comes to billions of dollars worth of taxpayers’ money. Meanwhile, the priority for Defence seems to be to go up to Papua New Guinea and try to salvage something that has been underwater since 1914, but they cannot actually deal with the priority of working out what they are going to do with the rescue vessel so we can actually use our submarine fleet. Talk about bad planning. Talk about poor financial management. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Then we come to the Minister for Defence. Isn’t he good? He has no idea where the money is going, he has no idea about the financial controls within his own department, but he has the audacity to compare what is happening in Iraq with the Australians who fought at Kokoda. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You really should. Instead of good financial management, instead of providing the infrastructure and support that our ADF personnel badly need and absolutely deserve, all we get is jingoism and misrepresentation from that minister. It is a complete outrage. He should pay attention to his duty to the taxpayers and to how the money is being spent and what is happening with the Seasprites. He should be actually making sure that we do have the capacity to use the Defence assets that we have rather than getting out there and sprouting jingoistic nonsense.

In the meantime, where is the minister when it comes to looking after the people who have been superannuated out of the ADF on the grounds of ill health? You can find a billion dollars for the Seasprites when you are not quite sure whether you are going to use them or not—and we all think that you are not going to use them but you cannot quite get around to making that decision—but you cannot consult with the people who have been superannuated out on the grounds of ill health and look after their future long-term needs. They put themselves in harm’s way on this government’s instruction and there is absolutely no intention by this government to take into account their special considerations. Do not come in here and lecture us. (Time expired)