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

Before I move this amendment, I just want to make it quite clear that this amendment is actually not complicated. It's just a common sense measure to keep others safe, especially their families. It is a simple amendment that allows diggers that have been told—once again misled—that their identity will be protected to actually have their identity protected, like they have been told for their entire careers, for many years. That is a big part of the reason that they signed up, especially when you have family, and it is ingrained in you that you will put the military first before your family. That is a sacrifice that we make, and we do that. Millions of other Australians will not. This amendment will make it a criminal offence to release the identity of those personnel we ask to conduct these most dangerous operations that nobody else will. Nobody else will line up and do them; they're not lining up today to do them, and I'll come back to that. This amendment seeks to give those personnel the same protection as an officer of ASIS. We're not asking for anything special; we're just asking for the same treatment.

This year a special forces soldier had his name splashed across the newspapers. The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force claims to be finalising charges against other soldiers, which, if this precedent follows, will allow the same treatment by the newspapers. Their identities will be revealed. Their lives will be put at risk. Their names will be put out there, not to mention what will go on for their children. Not to mention we still have ISIS cells running around Australia—let's be honest here. If you think splashing their names across the newspapers does not put them and their families in danger, then you are delusional—you are absolutely delusional. When the ISIS enemy come after us, they don't give a stuff. They're happy to take our kids out. If you didn't see the way they played their role in war in the Middle East, then have another look. They don't care!

But I'll tell you what hurts more. It's when you leave a digger standing and they've got no family around them. This is what happens. Special forces personnel are sometimes required to engage in secret operations in other countries, but of course we don't ask any questions about that. How dare we? We wouldn't dare, and we don't because we're too bloody scared to ask. You don't want to know the dirty crap they're doing for this country that they've been asked to do. You don't want to know! You don't want to know not because they're not doing it and you don't know. You don't want to know because you asked them to do things that you would never ask yourself or anybody else to do. That's what we ask of them.

This amendment will put an end to having their identities released. You have a white elephant in this room. In one corner we're talking about national security. In the other corner people are not joining our forces. And I tell you what: they're sure as hell not lining up to be in the special forces anymore. They're not dying to go to Western Australia whereas they used to compete to get in. When I was in, you had more than enough competition. They could pick and choose from hundreds. If you want to talk about national security in this country, then you'd better have a look at where the white elephant in the room is. You'd better have a look at the way you're treating them because I can tell you. I have put it out there and I'll continue to say: 'Don't join the SAS. You are not protected. You never will be. You are a digger.'

If it isn't senior commanders, it is politicians who're prepared to chuck them under the bus. They're the same people that we ask to make the ultimate sacrifice in doing all the dirty crap we won't do or we don't even want to think about. We don't want to ask questions because we don't want to know. I am simply asking us to give them the same treatment as ASIS. Why is ASIS so damn special? They're doing all the dirty crap out there in the SAS, but they can't get this treatment. This is what this amendment does. Wake up! Once again, in this corner no-one wants to join. No-one wants to join because senior commanders keeps chucking them under the bus. They sure as hell aren't running to join commandos and the special forces, which is where your strength comes from. It's the diggers, thousands of them, that look up to those men. They look up to them because they know without speaking about it what we ask them to do. We don't ask questions about diggers either because we know we're not capable of doing what they can do, and neither are we ever put in the situations they're put in, and that's what makes them so special.

Why can't they have their identities protected? Why can't we treat them the same as ASIS? Why are we doing this? You are part of destroying our national security in this country. That is where we're at today. I move amendment (1) on sheet 2058, and I commend it to the Senate:

(1) Schedule 1, Part 9, page 19 (after line 5), at the end of the Part, add:

43 After paragraph 41(a)

Insert:

(aa) if the person identifies a person as being, or having been, a member of the Australian Defence Force who is serving, or who has served, in a unit that conducts special operations; or