Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Defence (Senator Payne) to a question without notice asked by Senator Lambie today relating to the defence budget.

It has become clear, after listening to the Minister for Defence, that the only way Tasmanian businesses are going to be allowed fair access to the $450 billion worth of defence contracts detailed in our defence white paper is to become a marginal electorate. If Tasmanian businesses, pensioners, workers and families want a better deal from the federal government and want more than they are currently getting, when the pollsters ring or come knocking, they should tell them that they are voting for the JLN candidate. Even if they are not going to vote for the JLN candidate, they should tell the pollsters that they are going to anyway, because that will make the government and the Labor opposition promise to give Tasmania a better deal than we are actually receiving. It is a well-known fact of politics that safe electorates or states are always ignored by the major parties. The Liberal Party has for decades taken the political support of Tasmanians for their Senate candidates for granted, and Tasmanians have received the electoral equivalent of a kick in the guts for their loyalty to the Liberal Senate team.

I am very disappointed that the idea of a voluntary national service program for young Australians was dismissed during not only the minister's reply today but also my dinner with Prime Minister Turnbull at the Lodge. I always appreciate the opportunity to speak with Australia's top political leaders to try and get more for Tasmania. However, after my dinner discussions with the PM I was left underwhelmed by his attitude to my suggestion for an Australian Defence Force national service program for young Australians. On the day I had dinner with the Prime Minister, he launched a 10-year, $450 billion defence program. Nowhere in that program did he or his government have room for the revival of a voluntary national service program for young people which incorporates Defence apprenticeships and trade traineeships.

If we had politicians with vision, like we did in the past, we could build an Australia where our children had pathways in front of them where they could either earn, learn or serve. Under my plan they would not be allowed to just take unemployment benefits and do nothing. If a young person was offered a position in our military, which comes with free dental and medical care, and also received the opportunity to be trained in a skill or trade and they chose not to take that opportunity, then they would not be allowed to continue on the dole. That is why I should not have to make my national service mandatory for Australia's young people. The JLN has a policy of voluntary national service. You either earn, learn or serve and take the opportunity to contribute to Australia or you do not qualify for welfare payments.

In the past we had governments, both Labor and Liberal, who supported the training of approximately 30,000 Defence apprentices between 1948 and 1993. With youth unemployment so high and our kids, especially those in regional and rural areas, struggling to get that first job, why can't we revive a National Service, Trade and Apprenticeship Scheme, the NSTAS? It makes sense to support national service for young Australians which ensures that they come out of the military with real-world trade skills.

It is exciting for politicians to get their photos taken in the latest jet fighter, tank or ship. But the most important investment in our military is providing young Australians with skills that not only help to protect our nation in times of war but help our nation to thrive and flourish in times of peace. One of the reasons I am becoming a little grumpy with the corrupt crop of political leaders is that no-one has vision or is making decisions for our grandchildren. They care only about themselves and the next deal that will line their pockets in retirement. Our nation is facing a trade skills shortage, which then justifies the government's decision to allow more and more foreign workers in on 457 visas. This ultimately is a sneaky and sly way of undermining Australian workers' pay and conditions.

In the short time left to me I would like to warn the Australian people about the Liberals' plan to get re-elected. The Liberals want to change the voting system and then game the voting system by running a just-vote-1 campaign. The Greens are the Liberals' enablers and accomplices. They intend to create as much chaos in this place and as much industrial unrest in broader Australian society as they can in order to justify a double dissolution election. The Liberal and National parties are prepared to bring the Australian economy to its knees, just as they did in their first horror budget, in order to obtain an electoral advantage. The joint committee hearings on Senate voting reform and the impressive evidence from people like Malcolm Mackerras prove that they want to change it and game it. That is all the Liberal Party wants. It is all for themselves. It is not all about Australia and its people. It is about the Liberal Party and the elite.

Question agreed to.