Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I want to place on record support for the motion as proposed, the motion from Senator Lambie and Senator Shoebridge, with that amendment in place. To provide some context, I spoke about these matters in the chamber earlier this week and, in doing so, acknowledged at the time the enduring debt of gratitude that every single Australian, especially every parliamentarian, should have to the women and men of our Defence Force and all of our veterans. I also acknowledged the relentless work of Senator Lambie in her efforts around support for veterans and accountability of government when it comes to the support for veterans. I also acknowledged, from the opposition's perspective, that we see as very important the work done by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force and the work of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. We understand the intense interest of the veterans community in the work of the IGADF, and we understand and have supported transparency in relation to that work.

The way the government has handled this has turned into, to use the colloquial term, something of a cluster. For quite some time the government had said, 'Yes, we'll release the report but just not yet,' and that they were going through a process. As the opposition, respecting the sensitivity of these issues, we backed the release of the report and also gave the government the benefit of the doubt in relation to the need to prepare the work for release and to handle it with appropriate sensitivity regarding its content, with confidentiality matters and other matters being taken into account.

After the debates in this Senate and the call made very clearly by this Senate for the government to stop faffing about and saying they'd do it some time and instead to say precisely when and how they would release it, we then discover that, within different arms of government, the report's been published and then removed from the website and it's apparently just been tabled now. We've got this on-again off-again chaos coming from the government in handling something that is sensitive, that does matter and that should have been part of a proper process from the outset. The government should've had the foresight to think about how they were going to handle this from the outset themselves, without needing to be prompted by the Senate.

But, when they were prompted by Senator Lambie and the Senate, they certainly should have worked out what the process would be. Frankly, if they haven't worked out by now that Senator Lambie was going to be a bit of a terrier in coming back again and again, then they haven't been paying attention during her time in the Australian Senate and they should have realised that, actually, they'd have been much better off being clear, firm and precise about how and when it was going to be handled. They could have certainly earned the trust of the alternative government and hopefully even earned the trust of other senators, but, most importantly, they could've earned the trust of the veterans community by being more precise and thoughtful in the way they've handled it.

We support this motion because the chaos, the mishandling, the on-again off-again responses from the government and the accidental publication of the report deserve to be explained. Given the amendment that Senator Shoebridge has proposed, non-government senators have agreed it would be better that the government has 24 hours to think about it, to understand what happened and to come and give a serious response to the Senate. The amendment to replace 'immediately' with '10 am tomorrow' is foreshadowing to the government: Take this matter seriously. Don't just come in here with some glib statement that seeks to brush it aside and say, 'Oh, well, we've tabled it now.' Take it seriously and understand the seriousness with which non-government senators have taken it. We are giving that time to the government rather than simply calling a minister to the table immediately so that they can come in here and detail how it is that this report was published and then removed from publication and why there has been this delay in terms of transparency and accountability, only for the minister to suddenly bring it to the Senate floor right now.

This type of chaotic approach should not be how such a sensitive issue is handled, and the government should come prepared tomorrow to be very clear about what the delays were; why the accident—if it was an accident to publish—occurred; what interventions occurred to have it removed; why there is the sudden change of heart to publish it in this chamber today; and ultimately, how the government is going to take these matters forward with far greater care and sensitivity than they have shown to date.