Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Feeney is right to suggest that these are quite exceptional circumstances, but they are circumstances that are entirely appropriately raised by the opposition in the Senate today, because we face a most extraordinary situation. It is a situation where a very senior member, recently retired, of the Australian Defence Force, General John Cantwell, has criticised very directly the Minister for Defence for not just his competency but also the lack of respect that he has engendered from members of the Australian Defence Force. He is joined in that criticism by a host of other senior figures within the defence space, particularly General Peter Leahy, former Chief of the Army, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday; General Jim Molan, a very highly respected member of the Defence Force who has also made criticisms of the performance of the minister; and, in effect, the present Chief of the Defence Force, General Hurley, who saw fit when the Kirkham report was brought down to immediately reinstate Commodore Kafer to his role of Commandant of ADFA, notwithstanding the fact that the minister said, 'I stand by my criticisms'. In effect, General Hurley indicated his disagreement with the approach the minister was taking.

So we have here several key figures within the Defence Force, or at least recently part of the Defence Force, making criticisms, and the point that the government needs to get—which it obviously has not got to this point—is that General Cantwell, General Leahy, General Molan and, to the extent that I have attributed his remarks in the same direction, General Hurley, speak for the Defence Force. They speak for the members of the Defence Force, the men and women in uniform who do not have confidence in this minister. It is not a pleasant thing to have to say that those people who are in the field, who serve in uniform across this country and beyond its shores, have reached a serious point where they do not have support for or confidence in their minister, but I know from conversations I have had with many members of the Defence Force that that is true. I ask members of the government, if they believe that Mr Smith enjoys the support of members in uniform in this country, to go and talk to some of them and ask them what they think, because I do not think they will have any doubt about the answers they will receive. Earlier today Minister Ludwig lectured us in question time on how we must respect the independent investigation being conducted by Fair Work Australia. Well, we have another independent investigation, the Kirkham report. It was exhaustive and it went on for a long period of time. It sat on the minister's desk for three months, but the minister saw fit not to release that report, leaving the tarnish on Commodore Kafer's reputation while he did so, and eventually released the report when it was obvious he was not going to get shifted out of the portfolio. He could not shovel this responsibility onto somebody else, so he decided that he had to release it himself—a report which extensively exonerates Commodore Kafer in respect of the Skype affair. And where is the apology to Commodore Kafer? It is not forthcoming. It is behaviour like that which makes the minister so on the nose within the Australian Defence Force.

It is not just in this area, however, where he deserves condemnation. He has now been sitting on a decision about replacement with Australia's future submarines for several years. He is like a rabbit caught in the headlights, unable to make this big decision about what we do to replace the Collins class submarines, which are ageing. This minister needs to make that decision, but he seems incapable of doing that. It is for reasons like that that the minister needs to go.

The minister clearly does not want to be in the Defence portfolio. He made that very clear, not just—presumably—to the Prime Minister but to all who would listen before the recent reshuffle. It is equally clear from the field evidence that the Defence Force do not want him to be their minister. The fact that he, in the words of Senator Feeney, 'defended the rights of a victim' is not the point. That is not the issue on which Mr Smith is currently being condemned. It is his failure to acknowledge that in that process he did the wrong thing by Commodore Kafer, who handled himself well, dealt with the issue appropriately within ADFA and got no credit for it from the minister. That kind of behaviour simply cannot be tolerated. That kind of behaviour has brought the minister to this low point, and he ought to read the signs and do something about it.