Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last year, the Inspector-General of the ADF marked its 20th year in operation, and an independent 20-year review of the IGADF was initiated and approved by the Deputy Prime Minister. The review, conducted by former justice Duncan Kerr, was wideranging, in respect of the IGADF's structure, operations and functions, and makes recommendations about whether the inspector-general in its current form is fit for purpose.

The report is currently under consideration by the government. As the Deputy Prime Minister advised in his letter of 2 June provided to the Senate, in considering the review the government is consulting widely across stakeholders, including Defence, other agencies and the families of Australian Defence Force personnel who have lost their lives while serving. The government believes that it is important that this consultation be finalised to enable the completion of the government's response to the report. Further time is needed to undertake that work.

I'm advised that the government intends to respond to the order once that process is complete. I am further advised that Senator Lambie was offered and had accepted a confidential briefing on the review, including an opportunity to read the review, and I again reiterate the government's offer in relation to that. The offer remains open, and we are willing to extend that offer to any interested senator. It is the usual practice in receiving independent reviews for the government to take the necessary time to work through them and develop a response to the recommendations, and that is what is occurring here.

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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Let's go back over this. I want to first hit on what the offer from the defence minister was so that veterans understand this very clearly. I had 15 minutes. It was broken down. I had 15 minutes that I could look at that report. Unless that report is about half a dozen pages, which I doubt, I don't know how I'm ever going to get through that report. Then I had 45 minutes where I could ask questions, basically, on that report. Blow me over and then sign some rubbish—I couldn't walk out of there and not speak about that.

We are now three months in. We are sitting at a royal commission. We have been doing this for nearly three years now at a royal commission. If you've been listening to the evidence of the royal commission, it has been made very clear that law enforcement within the military has been part of the reason for veteran suicides. I would have thought these families who have lost sons, daughters, mothers and fathers had been through enough. There is no reason not to release this report. That is rubbish! In three months, I'll be coming for who you've been consulting with. I notice you're consulting with Defence. God knows why, because you can't believe a word that comes out of their mouths.

Let's go over this in order. For the defence personnel out there, let's make this quite clear. Once again, this report by Justice Duncan Kerr was delivered to Defence over three months ago, in March 2024. In 2023, I wrote to the Auditor-General three times requesting an urgent audit into the Office of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, and they knew very well there was a royal commission going on into veteran suicides. The Office of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force has never ever, in its 20-year history, been subject to an audit by either major party. Even with all the veteran suicides going on, you didn't want to know about the legal system and why it was causing suicides. You should be ashamed of yourselves!

In 2021-22, the office of the IGADF increased its staff by 85 per cent at taxpayers' expense. We've got no idea why, apart from what I think and predict, and that's to use those members to fight against us again and then to sit there and look at evidence and go, 'It has nothing to do with us; we know nothing about this, not our fault.' That is exactly what they've done. They have pushed themselves up, paid more, probably put more generals in there to take us diggers on, instead of saying, 'You know what, we're part of the problem here.' Once again, they've covering their own butts.

The office of the IGADF has been criticised. I don't know how much. It actually made me sick to the gut, where I wanted to spew in a bucket in the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides, particularly around its leadership, because it has none. 'Accountability' and 'transparency'—don't mention those two words to the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, because he doesn't know what they are. The Australian National Audit Office—oh, dear—and the IGADF met in September in 2023 to discuss the potential scope of the audit. Here it is! Secretary Moriarty, there he goes up to the National Audit Office and says, 'Shoosh, mate, you don't want to do this; you don't want to do this, mate.' And I've sat up here for nine years thinking the National Audit Office was completely independent.

Well, if you want an audit done on something, it's about time the National Audit Office had one done on itself to see whether or not it is truly independent, because it is not. It was disgusting what Moriarty did—disgusting! This is a bloke who's been in there since 2017 as the secretary. Most things he has touched have failed, and you still employ him there. Do you know how harmful that is to veterans and their families? Do you know how harmful that is?

The Australian National Audit Office, in an email dated 4 October and 15 November 2023—you know what, I'm going to run out of time.

Question agreed to.