David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

enator SHOEBRIDGE () (): by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the government's response.

The response from the government was that they would produce no documents. This was a call for papers in relation to the quite dangerous ditching of a military helicopter, the MRH-90 helicopter, in Jervis Bay in March of this year. It ditched in the water in deeply humiliating circumstances for the army and sat there on the edges of Jervis Bay for days until it was plucked out by a navy crane and taken off for testing. Only one month after, the Army gave their fleet of MRH-90 helicopters a clean bill of health and started putting them in the air again. That was just one month after it ditched in Jervis Bay.

In May of this year, Senator Roberts quite sensibly sought an order for the production of documents and got the agreement of a majority in the Senate to produce to this house the documents in relation to that ditching: why did it ditch, what's been done in response to it and how on earth can it be safe to put service personnel back in one of these helicopters just a month after it literally lost power and spiralled down into Jervis Bay?

I give all credit to the crew, who managed, through whatever detailed training they have, to prevent a fatality in that incident, but the idea that the Army, just one month after, put these helicopters back in the air without telling anybody what arrangements they'd made to make them even basically safe—no public statements about what new measures had been put in place. It's my understanding that one of the problems with the MRH-90 is that, if you turn it off and then maybe you've got something like a conflict going on and you want to turn it on again, you can't do that. You have to wait a day before you can turn it on again. They've got all these warning signs saying that, if you've turned it off, don't turn it on again, because that's actually really dangerous.

The government might think that's a sensible military asset to have; maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I'd probably think it's not. Most people don't think that the MRH-90 is at all sensible. Maybe what the MRH-90 actually did in this case was try and save taxpayers some money. Whilst the ditching was dangerous and terribly unsafe, the good news is that every hour it's on the ground and not in the air is a huge budget saving for the people of Australia, because these things cost $48,000 an hour for every hour you put them in the air. Every one that's on the ground is a huge budget saving. Maybe a continual grounding is the way we actually save the ADF a substantial amount of money.

The key issue here is what's been done. What has been done that notionally makes these extremely expensive, notoriously unreliable helicopters suddenly safe? It's not just the hot and cold start that's a danger for these MRH-90s. They were meant to be with the Navy. The Navy would put them on the back of a naval vessel and take them out on an exercise, and they could only fly them for one day because the MRH-90s don't like salt water. If you fly them for a day anywhere near salt water, it's actually dangerous to take them out again on the second day. These are the MRH-90s that they gave a clean bill of health to within a month—the same things. They don't like salt water, but they do like huge amounts of money. You can't start them when they're hot, but apparently the Army says they're perfectly safe and fine after a rough-and-ready one-month review of them. I don't think that's good enough.

The reason given by the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Defence, for not producing was that, 'Defence is conducting an internal investigation into the incident, and the minister intends to respond to the order when this investigation is complete.' That is never a basis to refuse to produce to the Senate. An internal investigation by Defence? Is that the same mob who did a quick-and-dirty review within a month and put these incredibly expensive, unreliable and dangerous helicopters back in the air? I don't think that's good enough. We would be willing to work with other members in this chamber to ensure we get a proper response on the record to the call for papers because they're incredibly expensive, incredibly dangerous and they shouldn't be in the air with Australian service personnel.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.