Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Lambie moving that the document be tabled.

Yesterday I called on the government to acknowledge and take responsibility for the shocking lack of accountability at the top of our Defence Force. The government didn't support my call to admit that we have a problem, and we have a massive problem. I have been asking for a meeting with the Minister for Defence for months to talk about this. Like the Chief of the Defence Force and the top brass, the government are, no doubt, hoping this will all just go away. They're hoping that Australians will forget that, when alleged war crimes in Afghanistan were investigated, our senior commanders got a free pass while the diggers got thrown under the bus. Well, we don't forget. I won't forget. Lest we forget.

There is a culture of cover-up at the highest levels of the Australian Defence Force. It is the ultimate boys club. Today I say enough is enough. There will be no more marking your own homework. There will be no more throwing our diggers under the bus. When the war crimes investigation was formed, Major General Brereton ruled out investigating senior commanders, and the previous government said: 'Yes, sir. No worries.' But what do you know? This government is following suit. Let's be quite clear here: the senior commanders have not been examined through the hard-core legal lens that they have put our diggers through.

When the Chief of Defence was asked in estimates if his command accountability review was an investigation, he admitted that it was not. So I guess it was just another 'marking your own homework' exercise. It seems that those who are most responsible are the least accountable. There is evidence from multiple sources—independent of the Brereton inquiry—including witness testimony before a civil defamation trial, which said:

The leadership knew. This went beyond the patrols. This was known up the chain.

Some of these sources confirmed that the leadership knew for years about the allegations of unlawful behaviour, including an SAS patrol commander. The incident was reported all the way up the special forces chain of command. The former patrol commander says that he was told by a senior officer:

… the regiment is bigger than an individual and the integrity of the regiment must come first … he informed me the regiment will handle this internally.

The former SAS patrol commander had one message: 'Everyone knew.' Everyone knew, and still our government is silent. Worse, they put the guy who gave the senior commanders a free pass the top job at our National Anti-Corruption Commission.

So this morning we are taking action. We have filed with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague an article 15 communication. This asks him to look at Australia's higher commanders through the lens of command responsibility. An enormous amount of work has gone into this. I thank all of them for their contribution, especially Dr Glenn Kolomeitz, veteran and lawyer. The law of command responsibility is a method of criminal liability where commanders have failed to do their duty. The International Criminal Court is a court of last resort. It isn't an easy task to get them to investigate. They can only do this if the state party, in this case Australia, has failed to investigate high command for their breach of duty.

Alexander Downer fought hard to get Australia to sign up to the International Criminal Court. I'm sure he never considered that we would need the International Criminal Court because Australia was shielding its own military commanders from accountability. But that is what has happened. Australia has in effect set up two systems of criminality—one for Australia's top military commanders and another for commanders from the rest of the world.

Quite frankly, I feel embarrassed that Australia is in the situation, so I am helping the government today. I am giving you a second chance to get this right and fix this mess. It is your turn. You are the government of the day. I want to see what leadership you have. With a heavy heart once again, I am asking you to allow me to table these goddamned documents, because high command needs to be held responsible. Please allow me to table these documents.