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

There's a motion coming up that I'm proposing to amend, and this is the only chance I'll get to explain why. It's a motion to set up a select committee inquiry into Australia's sovereign capability. It's a good issue to look at. I'm proposing to amend it anyway, not to kill it dead, but to make it work. At the moment it doesn't work. It's being asked to run a mile in 10 seconds—that's impossible and it will fail.

I am in favour of an inquiry into our sovereign capability. I like the idea so much that I think we should do it properly! We don't need a select committee for this; most of the time those are a stitch-up. Whoever sets it up, sets it up—that's because whoever sets it up makes the rules. Look who Senator Rennick wants on this committee. There are six spots for senators up for grabs, and he wants the government to get half the spots and One Nation to get the fourth spot. And why wouldn't he? One Nation vote with the Liberals 75 per cent of the time and, right now, One Nation are more likely to vote with the Liberals than half the Liberal Party themselves. That's where we're at. Senator Rennick wants to give government senators and government mates the lion's share of spots for an inquiry into what the government is doing. And he wants to do it in six weeks. He reckons that's all the time it will take. What a rip-off for the nation! When it comes to talking about sovereign capability, you can do it quickly or you can do it right.

We have a standing committee called the FADT—foreign affairs, defence and trade. I'm one of the people on it. We look into things like this all the time. That is our job. That's why I don't support this inquiry. It's not because I don't think it's such an important issue—I think it's damn critical and that we need it. I think it's up there with the most important issues, and we could be looking at it right now. That's why I want a real inquiry, not a stitch-up done at minutes to midnight and stacked to the gills with government cronies and conspiracy theorists. That's what I'm looking at, and that's what the nation deserves.