Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

Before I get to that I want to pay my deepest and most sincere regrets to the community of Oenpelli, who, as we know, lost two teenagers to the awful addictive habit of petrol sniffing last week. One of the four teenagers involved in this incident remains in a critical condition on life support at Royal Darwin Hospital.

In the intervening time between Senator Santoro’s answer to me and now, at five past three, I have had my office re-ring the community of Oenpelli. I notice that Senator Scullion during question time was trying to allude to the fact that Oenpelli has Opal fuel. In fact, I knew my sources were correct. It beggars belief that a minister in question time can have such inaccurate information when it comes to providing answers on such a critical national problem in relation to Indigenous people in this country.

The community council at Oenpelli has Opal fuel for use in its own council vehicles. There is no retail outlet of Opal fuel at Oenpelli—that is, nobody at Oenpelli can buy Opal fuel; it is only bought by the council for use in its own vehicles. So that would mean that in fact it is not accessible to the majority of the community at Oenpelli and it is certainly not available for retail—that is, for public and private use.

My sources tell me that on 28 November—only last week—the community council at Oenpelli approved a request by the service station and its owners in that community to apply for Opal fuel. That request was agreed to by the community council, which will now embark on a joint process with the service station to put in the paperwork to apply for the subsidy. But really the issue here is why this government did not, immediately on receipt of that news, send somebody from Health and Ageing or from Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs straight out to the community to say to them: ‘Don’t worry about the paperwork. Let’s get that done in weeks or months time, but let’s just get Opal rolling in here as fast as we can.’ But a week has gone by and there has been no activity on behalf of this government in relation to what is happening with respect to these young Indigenous people around our country.

In June this year the Senate Community Affairs Committee tabled a report called Beyond petrol sniffing: renewing hope for Indigenous communities. We have referred to this report numerous times. Six months on we are still waiting for this federal government to respond to this report. Let me take you to recommendation 22:

That Commonwealth Government discuss with BP Australia what role they may have to assist the distribution of information on Opal and the distribution of Opal identification stickers.

Recommendation 23 states:

That the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments examine the procedure at Maningrida—

a community very close to Oenpelli—

whereby contracts are used to prevent contractors bringing regular unleaded petrol into their communities …

These are two recommendations I want to concentrate on in the next couple of minutes, as well as the fact that this report suggests that Opal should be rolled out as soon as possible. The kids at Oenpelli were trying to break into a shipping container of leaded fuel that was going to contractors, so another issue that has now come to light that we did not pick up on in our inquiry is that there could be immediate discussions with land councils about ensuring that nobody, no contractor, gets a permit to go onto those lands to do any work unless they are using unleaded petrol.

In recent weeks there was a debacle in Alice Springs with the shameful advertising and reporting in the media that Opal fuel somehow wrecks cars. We know from our inquiry that that is simply not true. We know that the federal government’s communications backbench is sitting on a strategy to roll out Opal fuel and to advise retailers and consumers in Alice Springs that it has no detrimental effect. We know that they met on 12 December and that nothing will happen until next February. (Time expired)

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to respond to a question asked by Senator Bishop of the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, Senator Ian Campbell, on the performance of military police surrounding and following the untimely death of Jacob Kovco in Iraq. Jacob Kovco died on 21 April 2006 as a result of a single gunshot wound whilst serving with the Australian security detachment inside the green zone in Baghdad in Iraq. The Chief of Defence, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, appointed a board of inquiry to investigate the facts surrounding the death of Private Kovco, including the incident in which he lost his life, relevant instructions and procedures, and the adequacy of training and equipment involved therewith. The board of inquiry commenced at Victoria Barracks in Sydney on 19 June 2006.

Defence went to great lengths to accommodate an open and transparent inquiry in the face of serious safety concerns for many of the witnesses involved, who were serving at the time in a potentially lethal operational environment. That is why all deployed personnel involved in the inquiry were referred to by a randomly chosen number rather than by name. This measure ensured that Defence provided these personnel with the confidence that their evidence would not jeopardise their safety, the safety of people they were charged with protecting or the safety or privacy of their family members. The measure ceased immediately upon the return of the soldiers to Australia.

The board was headed by Group Captain Warren Cook, an RAAF specialist reservist who is also a retired magistrate and a former coroner. He was supported by a civilian member, Jim O’Sullivan, a former Queensland Commissioner of Police, and Colonel Michael Charles, a reservist with an extensive military background. The board was also assisted by a number of witnesses and subject matter experts from the New South Wales Police Service investigations branch, forensic and ballistics specialists and leaders in the field of psychiatry. As a result of the report that I believe was presented yesterday, the Chief of Defence, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, acknowledged a number of shortcomings in the performance of the military police. The Air Chief Marshal has said that those shortcomings have been observed and identified and that he is going to conduct a proper response to those so that appropriate action can be taken.

This matter is one of ongoing concern. There has been a number of inquiries on this. Also, with respect to boards of inquiry, we have undertaken substantial reform wherein a number of civilian personnel have been enabled through amendments to the defence inquiry regulations to be contracted into supervised boards of inquiry.

The point of all this is that, as far back as 2005, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee inquiry into the effectiveness of Australia’s military justice system made a number of recommendations and the government response was quite emphatic, with more than 30 of the 40 recommendations accepted. One of those committee recommendations was that:

... the ADF conduct a tri-service audit of current military police staffing, equipment, training and resources to determine the current capacity of the criminal investigations services. This audit should be conducted in conjunction with a scoping exercise to examine the benefit of creating a tri-service criminal investigation unit.

This recommendation has been undertaken. The government will conduct a tri-service audit of service police to establish the best means for developing investigative capability. These establishments are underway and are being conducted.

The problem is that the Australian Defence Force is under intense operational requirements at the moment in Iraq—and may I say that I have been to Iraq—Afghanistan, the Solomons, Fiji and East Timor. This has put an enormous burden upon the Australian Defence Force. Angus Houston, the Chief of Defence, has committed to sorting these matters out. I have great faith in his ability to do that. (Time expired)

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the response Senator Santoro gave to us this afternoon on the question about petrol sniffing. I agree totally with one of the comments that Senator Santoro made, and that was his opening comment that the issue around petrol sniffing is a complex one. There is no doubt about that. Along with Senator Crossin, I want to—as I am sure we all do—send my deepest thoughts and sympathy to the community of Oenpelli as they struggle with the loss of two more of their children to the scourge of petrol sniffing, and also the prospective loss of other kids facing this horror.

However, I want to continue with comments we have made before in this place. I see that Senator Siewert, who has also spoken on this issue, is in the chamber. It is now six months after the extensive inquiry we had into the issue of petrol sniffing where we were able to receive evidence from so many people who acknowledged how bad the problem was, acknowledged the complex reasons behind the problem and also shared that there were ways forward. One of the many ways forward was the access to Opal fuel. It is particularly frustrating that we cannot get a clear answer.

The minister today tells us that some Opal fuel has been rolled out to the community. We have other information that that is not widespread and that the major suppliers of fuel in the community are not Opal exclusive. That is such a simple issue in regard to what we were able to find out about how petrol sniffing affects communities. We know that where there is access to petrol, for a whole range of reasons to do with community development and community opportunities, people will turn to petrol sniffing—not just Indigenous people. This is not just an issue that has an impact on Indigenous people, but today, particularly in the community of Oenpelli, there are a number of young Indigenous people who are suffering from the end result of the ineffective process of engaging people not only locally and federally but also, most importantly, individually in families to work together to address the range of complaints.

What we have is uncertainty even though six months ago representatives from the federal government, from the Territory government and from a range of local communities could spell out really clearly what needed to occur. What was needed was to make sure that Opal fuel was available in communities and to make sure there was a widespread personalised education program about options and about what people could do to regain hope in their communities, not just for the young people involved but also for the people who supply and sell fuel so that they could see that they had a particular role to play.

Increasingly we found similar shared experiences. People were repeating the same questions but they also knew the answers. What we did not have was action. We heard from the department, FaCSIA at the time, and OIPC that there was a plan in place that was going to be implemented immediately but also with a long rollout time to ensure that, while there would not be an immediate solution, they knew what had to happen. There was a sense of confidence that, whilst these issues about the impact of fuel, a relatively cheap substance which people could take to remove themselves emotionally from whatever was troubling them, have been discussed for so long—in fact we had people going back 20 and 30 years—people understood the problem.

What I am offended by is that we only ever seem to see the headlines; we only ever seem to get responses or action when there is a tragedy. The fact that some young people have died has actually refocused the attention of the community on the issue. We should not need those tragedies. We should be able to take the recommendations of our committee report. We should be able to take the goodwill, intelligence and knowledge of a range of people who came and gave evidence to that committee and we should be able to take the clear understanding of what needs to happen and make it happen. Instead we hear again of tragedy, when we should be hearing of successes where communities have taken the opportunity to improve what is going on and ensure their kids are not dying. That should be our expectation.

I would hope that when the minister comes back to the chamber with the extended information that he has promised today, we will be able to get some confirmation of exactly what the response of the department is going to be. I do not want to come back when we meet again in February to hear more stories about communities where, during the wet season when there was no other activity, when there was no community involvement, more kids have died. (Time expired)

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the answer given by Senator Ian Campbell to a question from Senator Bishop in question time in relation to the report of an audit of the Australian Defence Force investigative capability. The audit report into the ADF investigative capability has resulted from the government’s response to a Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee inquiry tabled in 2005 into military justice—a report which has been much discussed in this chamber in very many of its aspects and a report which has had far-reaching ramifications both in the broad of the Australian Defence Force and for many of the Defence Force community. The sixth recommendation of the military justice report was:

… that the ADF conduct a tri-service audit of current military police staffing, equipment, training and resources to determine the current capacity of the criminal investigations services. This audit should be conducted in conjunction with a scoping exercise to examine the benefit of creating a tri-service criminal investigation unit.

What we have before us today, made available publicly by the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, is the result of the acceptance by the government of that recommendation in full. Even a cursory glance at the report, made public this week by the chief and produced by Adrien Whiddett and Rear Admiral Adams, shows that the government has responded comprehensively to the recommendation of the Senate inquiry. The report in eight or nine chapters is a very forensic examination of the current operations of service investigation processes and makes a raft of recommendations, I understand numbering 99, all of which are accepted by the chief and by government for implementation.

The report goes to the effort of examining the different nature of ADF investigations as compared to civilian investigations in many cases. It contemplates the different environment in which those investigations are conducted and that is a very important aspect of this particular area of Defence Force activity and something which, I believe it is fair to say, came to the Senate committee inquiry’s attention on more than one occasion. But we are not talking about apples and apples when we are talking about civilian investigative approaches and military investigative approaches; we are, in fact, talking in many cases about apples and oranges, to use that tired metaphor.

The report goes on to look at the current service police investigative capability, the legislation, the policy and the doctrine that underlies all of those activities and the powers that are provided to service police. It looks at the training that currently exists within the organisations within the different services and how appropriate the resources devoted to this area are. The report then provides a very comprehensive examination of new service police command, of organisation and conditions of service arrangement and then, very usefully, I think, the eighth chapter of the report looks at an action plan for how this is to be implemented.

One of the most important things to do in the chamber this afternoon is to acknowledge Adrien Whiddett and Rear Admiral Adams for the work they have done on this very comprehensive audit. It is a very valuable tool both for the ADF and for those members of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, chaired by Senator David Johnston, who continue to have an oversight role, as you would be more than well aware, Mr Deputy President, on this particular aspect of military justice. It is one on which the implementation team, headed by Rear Admiral Mark Bonser and colleagues, reports regularly through the CDF to the Senate committee. We have discussed at least one of those reports as well in this chamber. The responsiveness of the ADF to some of the very serious concerns raised through the military justice inquiry, and the preparedness of the ADF to accept all 99 of these recommendations, some of which are very sweeping and some of which canvass the serious issues which we had already identified—in many cases with the service investigative capability—and implement them, is a very good sign. (Time expired)

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry, Procurement and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers by Senator Campbell to questions from me and Senator Hogg. I was going to make some remarks generally on the issue of military justice, on the reaction of the government to the Kovco inquiry and on the more recent release of the audit report, which both Senator Johnston and Senator Payne have more than adequately addressed in this debate. But I think it is time to place on the record the outrage being felt by the opposition in the way the Minister representing the Minister for Defence in this place deliberately chooses to go about his work and about his business.

In the last two days three questions have been asked on the Joint Strike Fighter project, Private Kovco and military justice. The last question was on Seasprite helicopters. Over the last six to 12 months there has been a huge amount of press on each of those issues. There has also been constant questioning and debate in the various committees of this parliament, and the minister himself has made numerous press releases on each of those issues. They are topical, they are of public interest and they involve, in some instances, huge outlays of taxpayers’ dollars. Any reasonably competent person acting as a representative in this chamber would have properly anticipated that an opposition would ask questions on those topical issues, as we have indicated repeatedly, via press release and other mechanisms, that we would.

But the response from Senator Campbell has been characterised by ignorance, belligerence, bullying and a refusal to answer. His response is insulting, offensive, ignorant and, twice today, just plain wrong. His response is insulting to the Senate in that legitimate questions which should properly be anticipated are not answered. It is not that the department has not provided a brief, and it is not that there are not numerous references in the files as to the questions and possible suggestions for answers, but because the minister refuses to bring the brief into this place and, if he does, he refuses to open it to read the agenda and see where the brief is located. That is nothing other than insulting to the proper role of the Senate.

Secondly, as well as being insulting, his answers are offensive to the family of Private Kovco and offensive to thousands of people in the armed forces who want to represent their country and who expect to be protected by just laws passed by their government. Senator Campbell’s response is offensive to both of those interest groups. Worse, for a minister representing an important portfolio in this area, Senator Campbell is ignorant of the government’s own policy and decisions in both areas.

With regard to the audit report, both Senator Johnston and Senator Payne outlined that the government has released it. It was made pursuant to a recommendation by the Senate inquiry and had 99 recommendations. The government and the Chief of the Defence Force have publicly, via a media release, accepted each of those recommendations. But Senator Campbell’s response was, ‘We will get round to it in due course; it’s an important matter but we haven’t yet had the opportunity to do it.’ Two days ago the government made a response. Two days ago the government said that it would accept the 99 recommendations. What is worse—to be lazy or to be incompetent? In the case of Senator Campbell, it is both. It is deliberate and it is belligerent. He refuses to answer questions, he refuses to make himself familiar with the work he has been allocated and he refuses even to open the file that has the answers to questions that can reasonably be anticipated.

In respect of the report into Private Kovco, that has been in the press almost every day for the last nine months. When the government released its response via the chief of the armed forces, it put out a 30-part implementation plan addressing each of the recommendations and a time plan for implementation. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.