Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Palmer United Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. I rise to contribute to today's matters of public interest discussion. There are four important matters that I will bring to the attention of the Senate chamber in the next 15 minutes. They are of great importance to the people of Tasmania and the nation. They include a threat to the public health, veteran suicides, the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme and the loss of CSIRO forestry research jobs in Tasmania.

I would like to thank the federal Minister for Health, Mr Dutton, and his team, who visited and had a meeting with me yesterday about a matter regarding a serious threat to the public health in Tasmania. I have every confidence that the health minister will ensure that the people of Tasmania are kept safe and the doctor at the centre of this matter who was alleged to be dangerously unsafe will be stood aside pending the results of an independent investigation. Once again I thank the health minister for acting so quickly on my request for a meeting and listening to my team's concerns. I hope for a speedy resolution to this matter and ask that the federal health minister give an assurance that this medical professional is stood aside pending the results of an independent investigation.

I request an independent investigation because there is also an allegation from a very credible source that accuses the body normally tasked with disciplining and registering doctors, AHPRA, of dysfunctionality, incompetence and/or misconduct, and there is compelling evidence to suggest that this is the case. In relation to the Australian Health Practitioners Registration Authority there is another matter that I will speak to during my time in this chamber.

I believe that Tasmania and other states deserve a national health practitioners registration authority body that is not funded by doctors, run by doctors and managed by doctors. It is not healthy to solely have doctors in charge of the registration and disciplining of doctors. After taking advice from health whistleblowers, I am of the view that, in order to have a safer medical system, we must move to a situation where there is greater independence, transparency, government oversight and accountability in the registration and disciplining of medical practitioners.

There are three significant independent reviews on the public record in Australia right now which show that AHPRA is systematically flawed or dysfunctional, and serious questions are raised on the competence of members of AHPRA and their medical boards. These reports are the Hunter report from Queensland, the Forrester report from Queensland and the Victorian Legislative Council's Legal and Social Issues Legislation Committee report No. 2 Inquiry into the performance of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. In the last nine months I have also provided this government with much written evidence to strongly suggest that something is seriously wrong at AHPRA. For the moment, I will leave the protection of public health to the federal health minister, the Tasmanian health minister, the Tasmanian Premier and the Australian Prime Minister but, if these politicians fail to act quickly and suspend this doctor, pending results from an independent investigation, I will use parliamentary privilege in this place and name this individual so that ordinary Tasmanians can make informed decisions to protect themselves and the health of their loved ones.

I now turn to the very worrying matter of Australian veteran suicides. Why is this government covering up the number of suicides in our Australian war veterans' community? Sadly, everyone in the ex-service community knows that, since 2000, hundreds of veterans who saw active service in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan have taken their lives. How have senior military officers, politicians and Commonwealth public servants been able to escape being held accountable for this national disgrace?

Our senior military officers and government bureaucrats know that Australia has never had enough troops and military resources to safely carry out the orders given to them by our politicians. At 1.2 per cent, our Defence funding, as a percentage of the GDP, stands at an all-time, historic low since pre-World War II. Most Australians are shocked to learn that if we placed every full-time member of our ADF—that is, Navy, Army and RAAF—in the MCG, we would barely half fill it. All public service and military leadership know that in the last 15 years a relatively small number of combat troops were expected to carry a massive active service workload. The present Australian veteran suicide crisis is a direct result of military leadership silence and compliance with orders from politicians who overcommitted our under-resourced Defence forces to protracted foreign wars. Why else would the top military brass and politicians allow our ADF members to have their active service deployments increased from six to eight months, complete up to 13 tours of active duty in just over a decade and be allowed to participate in armed combat controls while officially receiving antipsychotic and antidepressant medication? There is a reason why most political parties, senior military and government bureaucrats want to cover up our veteran suicide rate and limit official claims. The reason is this: if the true number of veteran suicides over the last decade became public, it would be damning proof of our senior Defence and political leaders' incompetence and failure to stand up for our diggers and their families.

I want this place to be clear on the point I am making. I, like all Australians, am 100 per cent supportive of our ADF members and the work they do. However, our troops have been badly let down by politicians and senior members of the military who have failed to provide them with enough resources and reserves to safely carry out some very dangerous missions. Our combat troops were not given long enough breaks between active deployments, and the evidence is building that our combat troops were allowed to complete too many tours of active duty by military and political leaders who knew better. They knew that too many tours of active duty would lead to this current crisis in veteran suicides but, because they cared more for the budget bottom line, they failed to stand up for members of the ADF and their families. For the sake of transparency, accuracy and respect for veterans, I therefore call on the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Prime Minister Abbott to make public all the information their government has covered up regarding Australian veteran suicides.

Tasmania's economy and ability to create wealth, jobs and prosperity for future generations has been held to ransom by absurd, over-the-top sea freight charges and ridiculous passenger travel costs. No state or territory in Australia apart from Tasmania suffers the outrageous logistic costs of simply crossing a border. To travel or trade between Queensland and New South Wales, Australian citizens or businesses simply have to jump in a car or a truck and drive a short distance across an imaginary line on a map—it would cost little more than a tank of fuel—whereas to travel or trade between Tasmania and Victoria, significant costs are incurred because of the 300 to 400 kilometres of open ocean separating the two Australian states. Put simply, travelling over 300 kilometres of open ocean is far more expensive than travelling over 300 kilometres of shiny, well-maintained, expensive mainland roads and infrastructure.

This Prime Minister and his government have promised to spend tens of billions of extra Commonwealth taxpayers' dollars on these expensive mainland roads and infrastructure, while this federal government is prepared to spend only $120 million on the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme. I will repeat that very important point for members of this chamber and for mainland residents of our country. Our Prime Minister and his Liberal government have promised to spend tens of billions of extra Commonwealth taxpayers' dollars on mainland roads and infrastructure linking states, while this federal government is prepared to spend only $120 million on the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme, which links us to our mainland counterparts. Clearly, Tasmania is being unfairly treated by this Liberal government, as it was by the previous Labor government, when the cost of doing business and travel across state borders is compared to other mainland states. Tasmanian businesses, when compared with every other business in other mainland states, are being strangled, smothered and choked by this Liberal-National government and the unavoidable, unique and high costs of open-ocean travel across an Australian state border. So is it any wonder that, as research Professor Henry Reynolds of the University of Tasmania's Department of History and Classics says, 'No other state has been so often in depression or experienced such a persistent loss of population.'

All Tasmanians ask in reply to this clear injustice is a comparatively small decrease in mainland infrastructure and road budgets and a modest increase in the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme from $120 million to $300 million. A reduction of $180 million in the mainland's infrastructure budget of tens of billions, in addition to the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme, would be a drop in the ocean for mainland states—but it would be a lifeline for those Tasmanian businesses who are fighting like hell to keep their employees in work.

Therefore, I call on—indeed, I demand—every Tasmanian member of this parliament support my call for $180 million of Commonwealth funds to be taken away from mainland road and infrastructure and immediately invested in the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme. When the scheme's total annual budget is $300 million, there will be no excuse why the current cost of moving freight and passengers across our border with Victoria cannot halve. When the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme total annual budget is $300 million, there will also be no excuse why all freight—both domestic and export—would attract the support of Commonwealth funding.

If the Bass Strait travel and transport cost crisis is not properly addressed, tens of thousands of jobs—both direct and indirect—are at risk. A relatively modest investment of an extra $180 million into the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme will produce massive benefits to the economy and boost the job security of tens of thousands of Tasmanian workers.

I will be writing a letter to the Prime Minister outlining my, and the Palmer United Party's, plans for an annual increase of $180 million to the current $120 million scheme, taking it to a total of $300 million per year. I will invite—and expect to receive—the written support of all Tasmanian members of this parliament. Indeed, I will name and shame those Apple Isle members who refuse to support a $300 million Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme.