Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today the New South Wales Labor Party has reached a new low. I have become aware of yet another disgraceful item on the Australian Labor Party’s website, authorised by the New South Wales Labor Party headquarters in Sussex Street. This website, www.debnamrecord.com, is entirely dedicated to launching personal attacks on the New South Wales Liberal Party leader, Peter Debnam, and the New South Wales Liberal Party.

What I find most shameful is the fact that, after 12 years of scandal, blatant lies and incompetence, the Labor Party feel that their resources are best spent on ridiculing the opposition leader, the military and the small business people who are the engine room of the Australian economy. The sheer arrogance of the Iemma government and its total denigration of the Australian way of service to one’s country and building a small business is why we desperately need a change of government in New South Wales.

While I am well aware of the Labor Party’s dirty tactics when it comes to election campaigning, one item on this website is particularly reprehensible and disgraceful. In this appalling ALP radio sketch, Peter Debnam is ridiculed for his service in the Royal Australian Navy. The item entitled ‘Can we trust a man who wore white pants?’ questions Peter Debnam’s credibility for the most senior job in the state because of his past service in the Navy. The radio sketch says:

New South Wales is having a State election but Peter Debnam has said the following: “I used to be in the Navy”. Can we risk a man who wore white pants to run this state? Say no to Peter Debnam.

What an absolute disgrace! This comes on top of another jingle, which is sung to the tune of In the Navy, which also sought to make fun of Peter Debnam’s naval service. Peter Debnam is mocked and derided for his service to his country. More importantly, the New South Wales Labor Party clearly considers a history of national service to be an embarrassment. This is an unqualified attack on all men and women who have served this country.

Isn’t it amazing how history repeats itself? The honourable career of joining the Defence Force certainly came under attack in the 1970s. Senators will recall the treatment received by Vietnam veterans when they returned to Australia. Labor and their apparatchiks were at the forefront of the attack of those veterans, many of whom suffer today because of psychological disorders established as a result of the attack on their integrity in their intent to serve Australia. It comes as no surprise that we are seeing a resurgence of this cancer and canker, with the Labor Party in the New South Wales government attacking the integrity of those who choose to serve in the Defence Force.

Hundreds of thousands of men and women have served in the Navy over many years. Let us not forget that many young men and women are today serving Australia in overseas operations, risking their lives to preserve the peace, security and rule of law that we enjoy in Australia today. Many who have  served in the Navy, past and present, have served with distinction and have seen the Defence Force as an honourable career.

If Labor think that being in the Navy makes someone unfit to be Premier, they have sorely misread the mainstream in the electorate. Morris Iemma and Labor are telling the electorate that if you have served in the Navy, forget it: when you leave the Navy, you are not fit for public office. That is the effect of the ridicule and scorn being heaped on thousands of our former serving men and women who have left the Navy to go on to other careers. This is disgraceful behaviour by Labor, and I hope that the voters this Saturday will remember this and be reminded of it. Those men and women serving at defence establishments throughout New South Wales should be reminded of the fact that the Labor government views their service to their country with disdain. Indeed, all of those former members of the Defence Force, and perhaps their fathers and grandfathers, are held in the same disdain by this ridicule.

Former military people leave the forces with extensive skills that are easily transferable to other careers. There are thousands of them in Australia. Yet the Labor government is prepared to laugh at them, to mock them and to say that because they wore white pants they are not fit to aspire to the position of Premier. What is most striking is the arrogance of a government that, after 12 years of presiding over a declining economy, crumbling infrastructure and unreliable services, resorts to discrediting those who served their country in the defence forces—just to score cheap political points.

My husband served in the Royal Australian Navy for 33 years. I am proud of his service to his country, and I am appalled that the Labor Party has seen fit to mock and ridicule the service of thousands like my husband. I know that I speak for many in condemning this shameful display of total disregard and disdain. I call upon Premier Iemma to withdraw this disgraceful item from this Labor Party website, to apologise for mocking and ridiculing people who served in the defence forces, and to apologise to people like Mr Debnam who have served their country—and to all of those people who are still serving. Indeed, I would urge the many naval associations and advocacy groups to join with me in condemning this outrageous mockery of our naval tradition. This is an all-time low, even for the Labor Party. This arrogant government has gone too far, and I urge the voters of New South Wales to hold Labor to account on Saturday.