Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge that our nation recently marked an important and sombre milestone, the 50th anniversary of Australia's withdrawal from the Vietnam War. The war and its aftermath were a difficult chapter in our nation's history. It is well within living memory, and many of us know personally those who were deeply affected by the conflict.

Whenever the Vietnam War crosses my mind I immediately reflect on my own father, who served with the 7th Battalion of the Royal Australia Regiment. He served in Vietnam while he was engaged to my mother. He was lucky enough to return home to his family, but 521 young men just like him never got that opportunity. And many of those who did come back to Australia, including the more than 3,000 wounded, were made to feel ashamed, embarrassed and humiliated for their role in what became a deeply polarising war. History has proved their contribution right and necessary. What is no longer controversial is the bravery and sacrifice displayed by Australian soldiers and the admiration they deserve. I was grateful to attend a wreath-laying with the Naval Association of Western Australia at the City of Stirling to mark the 50th anniversary, and today I want to use this occasion to acknowledge the important, and often forgotten, contribution of the Royal Australian Navy.

As I chatted with some of the veterans and community volunteers after the formalities, I noted a perhaps underappreciated part of Australia's involvement in Vietnam. While the majority of the conflict was characterised by ground warfare featuring the use of helicopter strikes and chemical weapons, one part of the war that is less well known is the role of our Navy. The Royal Australian Navy sent several key vessels, including HMAS Perth, HMAS Sydney, HMAS Hobart and HMAS Brisbane, carrying 13,500 personnel, to Vietnam. The Navy undertook several other critical roles, including providing escort duties to convoys to and from Vietnam, and clearing sea mines for the safety of allied shipping vessels. A crucial role was its contribution to what became known as the Gun Line, where Australia provided destroyers on a rotational basis to the United States Navy's 7th Fleet for the purpose of bombarding enemy targets on land. This undertaking also expanded to Operation Sea Dragon, where, again, our naval assets joined American vessels in shelling North Vietnamese military targets and supply routes. And the Navy provided its Fleet Air Arm, which featured heavy use of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. This is the model of helicopter depicted at the centrepiece of Australia's National Vietnam War Memorial on Anzac Parade, and was used by the Navy Fleet Air Arm to transport combat troops and supplies in air mobile operations.

At the tip of the spear of the Navy's story in Vietnam is the brave and exceptional operations of the Clearance Diving Team, whose motto is United and Undaunted. These elite forces completed some of the most dangerous undertakings of the conflict, which at the start of the war were mostly explosive ordnance disposal. They were required to check the hulls and anchors of ships for improvised explosives devices; salvage downed military helicopters; search villages for ammunition cachets; and demolish Viet Cong underground complexes. They later shifted to SEAL-type operations, fighting alongside American and South Vietnamese forces and finding themselves engaging the enemy in close quarters—often in death-defying circumstances.

Today I have described only a small portion of the Navy's legacy in Vietnam, but I hope to have emphasised the immense courage and determination of the Australian men and women who served in the Vietnam War on our vessels, in the air and on the land. As with all our Vietnam veterans, they deserve the deepest respect for the challenges they faced—and which some continue to face. In years to come, as the war slips further into the past, we have an obligation to remember their efforts and the spirit of Australia they represented there on those far-flung shores—the spirit of a free, democratic and prosperous nation that wished for a free, democratic and prosperous nation for other people.

The message Anthony Albanese tried to sell to Western Australians during his recent visit to Western Australia was that Labor supports our state, but nearly 18 months into this government many Western Australians are wondering where this supposed support has gotten them. In May 2022, then opposition leader Anthony Albanese got to his feet before a Perth crowd to launch his party's election campaign. He said that only Labor had a plan for a better future and pledged that Labor had real, lasting plans for cheaper mortgages. Nothing could now be further from the truth, because we now know that for Western Australians the terrible impact of Labor's cost-of-living crisis is possibly worse than for any other people in our country.

As though we need reminding, there have been 11 interest rate rises on the Albanese government's watch, with the central bank forced to do the work that Labor either won't do or can't do. More than 1,600 WA homebuyers are three months behind on their mortgage repayments. That is the highest rate in our country, according to data from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The same RBA data reveals that there are over 40,000 low-income mortgage holders in my home state of Western Australia spending more than 30 per cent of their household budget on repaying their loans. As a percentage, that rate is the second-worst in Australia.

Concerningly, it is our first home buyers who've been left most vulnerable to severe financial hardship under these circumstances. Eight in 10 fixed-rate loans in Western Australia will revert to variable rates during this year and next year. By the end of 2021, around 60 per cent of all first home lending was fixed, compared to 10 per cent. The fact the average WA home loan increased by nearly $100,000, to around $470,000, in the three years before the RBA started raising rates has put WA mortgage holders directly in the eye of this financial storm.

But it is not just mortgage holders who are now bearing the brunt. Renters are paying more under Anthony Albanese and Labor. New analysis done by my team shows low-income WA renters are now spending around two-thirds of their income to access an average rental property. While the median weekly rent has jumped from $370 in 2020 to $580 in 2023, the minimum wage has only grown from $753 to $863. This represents a ratio increase of 49 per cent to 67 per cent. Meanwhile, the percentage of income that an average WA worker spends on rent climbed from 20 per cent to more than 28 per cent between 2020 and 2023. These steps are all in the wrong direction and represent significant hardship for families and businesses in Western Australia.

Don't believe me, but you can trust the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army's Doorways Emergency Relief Survey confirmed this struggle, finding that 21 per cent of WA respondents had been unable to pay their mortgage repayments or rent on time in the past year. The national rate was just seven per cent. In fact, according to Anglicare WA, only one per cent of rents in our state are now affordable for a single parent with two children on the minimum wage. Renters have now joined mortgage holders as the victims of Labor's cost-of-living crisis in Western Australia.

Whether you are renting or in the process of buying your own home, which in WA represents about 60 per cent of the population, life has become almost unbearably difficult. It is a stark contradiction of Anthony Albanese's commitment in May 2022 to make life better. This is not the life Anthony Albanese and Labor told Western Australian voters they would have. Under his leadership, Labor is setting WA records for all the wrong reasons. The Prime Minister should spend less time trying to convince Western Australians to vote for the Voice to Parliament and instead focus on the mess he has created and the financial hardship he is inflicting on people. I implore him, on his next visit, to go and meet business leaders, go to mining sites and speak to the workers in our businesses and on our mining sites to get a real understanding of the terrible financial stress of Australia households.

The Prime Minister will soon land in Delhi, in India, to represent Australia at the G20. There is no doubt that Australia's relationship with India is the strongest it's ever been. The Indian diaspora in our country makes a tremendously valuable contribution. But today I ask the Prime Minister to speak with Prime Minister Modi—to find a fraction of his time in that discussion—to talk about the continuing conflict in Burma and about how the Indian government can do more to put pressure on the military regime to make sure that the violence and human rights abuses, particularly in the north-west of Burma, come to an abrupt end.