David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Defence (Senator Faulkner) and the Minister for Climate Change and Water (Senator Wong) to questions without notice today.

Recent events have indicated that there is no higher responsibility upon the government of the day than national security. Sadly, this government has disclosed a clear attitude and policy direction that is very soft on border protection. It has also disclosed a preponderance of softness on illegal immigration. What we have seen with respect to defence bases indicates that the government is also very soft on security at ADF bases around Australia.

The minister answered my question by highlighting that safe base threat levels went from Bravo to Charlie with respect to the matters arising in Melbourne, giving rise to the arrest and charging of several men related to alleged terrorist activities. What does moving from Bravo to Charlie actually mean? It simply means that the personnel at the gate of bases, particularly TAG/East, which is Holsworthy, began to conduct random vehicle checks and some random identity checks. I have to say that that causes me some considerable concern and I believe it causes all Australians some considerable concern. It follows that we are more than concerned—that is, we are very, very alarmed—that two journalists, following the publication of this material, simply wandered into Holsworthy and began, I think, to take photographs. It causes me some considerable alarm, that, notwithstanding the media publication of what was going on, we still did not respond to tighten up security.

The most important thing is when I and other members of parliament in the opposition receive emails and correspondence from soldiers saying that security at bases is substandard and that they are concerned. That is very, very important. Everybody now knows that security at Australian Defence Force bases is of concern. It is substandard. It is not adequate. Everybody except the Minister for Defence knows that.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is absolute rubbish! You are such a hypocrite.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Collins!

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is outrageous.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! You will get your chance later.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Holsworthy is not just any base; it is the home of TAG/East, the SAS equivalent on the east coast of our counterterrorist assault troops. If we cannot provide adequate security for that base, where are we? We are at a level of great concern with respect to what is happening here. This base contains a childcare centre. This entire story indicates a grievous problem with respect to understanding what is required to provide adequate security for military bases. I seriously hope the minister will engage in the debate regarding security at bases and will release the review being conducted.

Can I also say how concerned I am that al-Shabaab has not been put on the list of terrorist groups. Why the government has not proscribed this group absolutely worries me greatly. There must be some explanation for that. This group clearly is a problem. The United States says it has distinct links to al-Qaeda. The group was recently involved in kidnapping two French intelligence officers in Somalia. Why this group, having clear links and a nexus to these persons and the evidence giving rise to these arrests in Melbourne, has not been proscribed is an unanswered question that must cause everybody concern. What is going on? We have seen cutbacks in Customs, we have seen cutbacks in Australian Federal Police counterterrorism and we have seen a movement away from strict immigration policies. This government says the right things but does nothing. (Time expired)

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government has a number of clear and major successes on the table resulting from its hard work over the last 18 months, since it was elected in late 2007. In no particular order I refer to pension fairness, economic management, successive stimulus packages and education grants. There is work in progress going on in critical areas that were deliberately ignored by the previous government in the area of broadband and climate change. Those matters are all well known, and they are all on the public record and open to public discussion and debate. One area where this government can claim a great deal of credit—and it really is unsung—is its attention to the area of national security, defence and military procurement. In those areas, generally under the heading of ‘national security’, this government has gone quietly and effectively under a range of ministers and parliamentary secretaries to reform the dog’s breakfast that had been created and sustained by the previous government over a period of some 10 or 12 years.

Senator Johnston referred to matters relating to national security and pinpricked one or two matters that have been in the press in more recent times. What he did not address, what he did not discuss, was this government’s commitment to military spending, to defence reform, and the publication of the defence white paper some two months ago to almost unanimous approval amongst those people who take part in debates around defence, national security and military matters.

Senator Johnston referred to national security and some minor cuts in defence outlays, border protection and immigration. What are the facts that need to go on the record on Australia’s national security and the protection of Australia’s borders? What does this government say, what funds does it allocate and what are its areas of priority in protecting and advancing Australia’s national security and protecting our borders? Firstly, we say without equivocation that protecting Australia’s national security and the integrity of our borders is the highest responsibility of the national government, without exception. Even in a global recession the government have continued to invest in protecting our borders and strengthening our national security. As the Prime Minister said in his national security statement to the House of Representatives last year, the Rudd government have a long-term national security reform agenda and have been clear in our national security policy framework now and into the future.

What are those elements of our national security plan and national security policy framework? They go to defence matters, particularly the white paper, and remedying the huge problems we have in procurement. We were paying tens and tens of millions of dollars for items one after another that were delivered late, not on time or without the capability that government had contracted for and expected. Secondly, in the area of defence reform, we have paid an enormous amount of attention to remedying the black hole of people choosing not to join the armed forces. In Army and in Air Force, particularly, recruitment and retention rates have gone through the ceiling and we are hitting all of our targets. Navy is significantly improving as well. In the area of national security and border protection, the government provided more than $1.3 billion over six years for non-defence national security, border protection and anti-people-smuggling measures in the 2009-10 budget. This included—listen to it—$654 million for a whole-of-government strategy to combat people-smuggling and strengthen border security, the precise matters that Senator Johnston criticised. (Time expired)

Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is one point in his contribution to this debate on which Senator Bishop and I might agree, and that is that the highest responsibility of government is protecting its citizens from danger and from threat. That is the responsibility of government. In the area of national security, the manifest threat, Senator Bishop, has for a long while been—and remains so, as we have seen from recent events—that of international terrorism. In your contribution to this debate today, you barely could mention the word. Senator Wong, the Minister representing the Attorney-General, came into the chamber this afternoon for question time and she clearly was not prepared for the questions which were likely to be raised with regard to counterterrorism. She struggled to answer the questions that were put to her from this side of the chamber. She had absolutely no idea about the issues that needed to be addressed.

What a contrast with the way in which the former government addressed this problem. There was a comprehensive counterterrorism policy for almost the whole period that the Howard government was in office. There was increased expenditure on counterterrorism activities. In 2004 the government released a counterterrorism statement to make its position clear. There was active work with our neighbours through bilateral engagement on counterterrorism activities, including a very successful program of building the capability of the Filipinos and the Indonesians to deal with this need. We worked with our neighbours diligently and conscientiously on this problem. Of course, as Senator Brandis mentioned in his question to the minister today, there was a comprehensive revision of the antiterrorism laws in this country so that in the domestic arena we were prepared to deal with the challenge which now confronts us. We were dedicated to what might be called a clear and present threat.

What a change occurred on 24 November 2007. That date is significant because that is the date on which the Rudd government won office. From that date there was a fundamental change in the government’s attitude towards the danger of terrorism. It essentially became an issue of almost no importance to this government. There was a conscious movement of priorities. Mr Rudd, who sets the agenda on foreign policy, national security and just about everything else that the government does in this arena, decided that the priorities were elsewhere. He decided that the government ought not to be focusing on the issues that threatened the lives of Australia’s citizens—as, sadly, we recently witnessed in Jakarta. He decided that our foreign policy agenda should focus on pretty well everything else. He decided we should focus on gaining a seat on the United Nations Security Council. We ought to focus on an Asia-Pacific community. We ought to put forward $9 million for an international commission on disarmament and arms control. We ought to focus on rejigging the international financial framework through the G20. Apparently the government’s real focus ought to be on spending $13 million on opening a new embassy in Rome for the Holy See. That is where this government’s priorities have been. They have been nowhere near what is widely recognised as the main threat that faces this country and its citizens—the threat of global terrorism.

Senator Bishop mentioned the white paper. What a good idea that was. In 200 pages, there was half a page devoted to the issue of terrorism and no funding and no commitment to deal with it. Now, as a result of these recent events, we arrive at a situation where the government has been caught short. It has failed to deal with this issue. (Time expired)

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate this opportunity to follow that tripe presented to the Senate by Senator Trood. What has been discussed today by members of the opposition amounts to nothing more than scaremongering to divert attention from the critical issues of the day. We saw in the questions asked during question time that the scaremongering from this opposition, which is trying to divert attention from the debate around the CPRS and from its problems in other areas such as the OzCar scandal, is aimed at an area we should not be politicising at all.

Defence based security should not become an area for a cheap political point-scoring. I was brought up on Defence Force bases and I can tell you that the cheap point-scoring I heard today about security of and access to Defence Force bases is outrageous. It was suggested that there were emails coming to the opposition about the quality of that security, when every Defence Force officer knows these are not issues for public debate. They understand that security is compromised if details such as those raised by Senator Johnston about random searches or the method of operating security become matters of public debate. Defence Force personnel understand the issues that the opposition clearly does not in this area.

Let us look at the credentials of what they have put forward today. The defence security committee visited Holsworthy shortly before the current incident. On entering Holsworthy on 5 June, we did not hear concerns from Mr Baldwin about the problems and the issues he believes should be addressed. No, we only hear them now, opportunistically raised after the recent incident. What is worse is the suggestion that the opposition is receiving emails from people highlighting these problems—but of course no clear substance at all is presented.

What the public also does not know is that the opposition cannot reach a consensus in its views about the issues associated with Defence Force base security. We had the opposition defence, science and personnel spokesperson, Mr Baldwin, quoted in the Australian on 5 August saying:

Now is the time to be proactive. Events overnight have shown that now is the time to introduce armed defence personnel to guard our bases.

But then we have the shadow defence minister, Senator Johnston, saying to Ten News on the same day, ‘I don’t want to see defence personnel running boom gates.’ The shadow defence minister and the shadow defence personnel minister clearly need to get their act together, and they need to get their act together before they try and politicise this issue in the way they have in the chamber today. It is clearly cheap political point-scoring in an area it is critically important we do not politicise. National security and dealing with terrorism are indeed areas that we cannot afford to politicise in the way this opposition is seeking to do.

Let me deal with the substance of the matters about defence base security. Defence has acted appropriately and initiated an immediate review into defence base security, which will report quickly and identify whether any changes need to be made. It was the case that soldiers used to man the gates of our bases. This changed during the period of the Howard government. The view reached then was that our soldiers could be better used doing the work of soldiers, not opening and closing entry gates. Defence started contracting out base security from 1997 to 1999. The move stemmed from the Defence Reform Program initiated in 1997 to implement the recommendations of the Defence Efficiency Review, which investigated market testing and outsourcing as one means to increase the proportion of military personnel employed in the sharp end of combat and combat related positions. The Commercial Support Program proposed the contracting out of support functions where this was operationally feasible, practical and cost-effective. Let us remember that we have 1,200 contractors guarding our military establishments, freeing up defence personnel to train and deploy; in contrast, Australia currently has just over 1,300 troops in Afghanistan. Those troops deserve our support. They do not deserve cheap politicising of issues around defence base security, and this is what this opposition has been doing.

Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to agree, for once, with Senator Collins and suggest that our troops do need our support. They need our support in every way possible. I would firstly like to go back to some comments that Senator Bishop made assuring us of the government’s attention to national security and defence and about the development of the white paper and the government’s commitment to military spending and reform. I applaud Senator Bishop’s personal and genuine interest and commitment in this area, but I would have to suggest when he says that they also have an ongoing commitment to border protection he is erring on the side of farce. Since this government has been in place, we have had some 24 boats holding some 1,155 illegal entries enter the waters surrounding Australia. So I would suggest that facts actually speak louder than words.

So it is today in relation to the Holsworthy barracks. This was no mere security concern. This was a significant imminent terrorist threat on our own ground, in our backyard, here in Canberra. We were all horrified when we woke up and heard on the radio what had happened and who had been working in our midst—terrorist cells in our midst in Victoria and in New South Wales. So I ask you to just for a moment imagine the horror of those service personnel at the Holsworthy barracks when they turned on their radios and heard about an imminent threat to their base. These are men and women who have chosen the most honourable, laudable, worthy career: to serve this country and protect the rights, freedoms and liberties that we all enjoy. How doubly appalled would the mothers and fathers amongst them have been when they woke up to hear that news. Many of these people have chosen to place their children in child care on that base. It would be reasonable for them to presume that this would be the safest and most secure place their loved ones could be cared for.

At the Little Diggers Child Care Centre at the Holsworthy barracks there are some 49 little ones who are cared for, from 6.45 in the morning to six o’clock at night. Some of them are babies—19 of them are between a few weeks and three years of age—and the 20 others are between the ages of three and five. How horrified those parents would have been that this childcare centre, which is in the heart of this base, that is caring for their young ones, was also at threat. Amongst the different bases, there are close to 500 children. I raise this because these bases are not only looking after and delivering intensive training for our specialist forces but also caring for the young ones of these families that are dedicating their lives to protecting our rights. Across the bases—and there are some nine bases across the ACT, New South Wales and Victoria—there are close to 500 young children who we have to keep in mind, whose futures and lives are in our hands.

So it is not politicising it, as Senator Collins just said, to question what the security arrangements are on these bases. It is not politicising it to follow up on what Senator Johnston questioned, which was the upgrading of the threat level from Bravo to Charlie. It is not politicising it; it is what these people deserve and should expect. It is what we should be doing, and we should be doing it to protect our own families and our serving men and women. Senator Collins said that there was no evidence that there was anybody within the armed forces who had raised concerns. I would like to direct her to comments to the national president of— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.