House debates

Monday, 14 July 2014

Private Members' Business

Australian Defence Force

12:00 pm

Photo of David FeeneyDavid Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion from the member for Brisbane and I guess in my opening remarks I should pay her a compliment. It is quite typical when a new government comes into office that they will desperately try and take the credit for the achievements of the previous government, but generally speaking there are some approaches when undertaking that task which the honourable member for Brisbane has set herself apart from. The first thing one often does when trying to take the credit for the work of one's predecessor is change the name. It is very important if you are going to take the credit for the work and if you are not going to acknowledge the work that was done previously that you change the name of the program. With a new name and a new program the government can then desperately claim it as its own. But, to be fair to the honourable member for Brisbane, she and her colleagues have eschewed that tired old stratagem and instead are keeping the same name that we had under the former government. There really is absolutely no pretence here about their plagiarism: they have leapt into the future armed not just with Labor policies but, indeed, with the same name for those Labor policies.

Let me bring a little bit of detail to this. Firstly, they ask us to congratulate the government for the changes in health care. Of course I join with them in congratulating the Gillard Labor government for those changes—they were superb changes. Under that program we saw all dependants of permanent ADF members and reservists on continuous full-time service receive the health services that have been described. This was all Labor's National Australian Defence Force Family Health Program, a fine and upstanding program. As with so many policy elements in Defence, we saw those opposite complain and hark about it and, in their own desperately ham-fisted and childlike way, try and poke holes in these programs in estimates. But now, having come into government, they have not only embraced them, they have not only come into this place and congratulated these policies for their work, but they have not even gone to the effort of changing the name of these policies.

My personal favourite on this front is Plan Suakin. I am absolutely delighted to join with those opposite in congratulating the government for Plan Suakin because this was an outstanding policy of the Gillard Labor government and, indeed, I might say an outstanding policy of the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence at the time—hang on, that was me! We are invited to congratulate the government for the launch of Plan Suakin. Of course, Plan Suakin was launched in August 2011 and it was launched by me. The program was then run by the Cadet, Reserve and Employer Support Division of Defence. Major General Brereton led that division at the time. Plan Suakin was built on a reference from me about how we could normalise terms and conditions between reservists and full-time service members. I thought this was an important piece of the work the Gillard government was doing in the reserves space. I am sure we will see the fruits of that work continue to be desperately taken by the other side as their own accomplishments, but let me congratulate the member for Brisbane for being big-hearted enough to congratulate me on this piece of work.

It is perhaps a sad thing that responsibility within Defence for Plan Suakin has now moved from CRESD to the People Group. Of course those opposite would not have a clue about that, but as they desperately try and take credit for this program that me remind them that not only was Plan Suakin initiated under our government, it was launched under our government, and you have not even had the good manners to change the name. What you have had is the good manners to move this from being a responsibility of the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence—as I said, it was my program as parliamentary secretary in government—to now being something looked after by the Assistant Minister for Defence.

In the absence of Stuart Robert having a portfolio of responsibilities in the context of the Minister for Defence having kept everything for himself and not delegated anything, we now see this fine and outstanding accomplishment of Senator David Feeney not even changing its name, not even changing its terms but now moved to a different member of government. Here you are, big hearted folk that you are, in the place congratulating me and the former government for that program. We thank you for your generosity of spirit; absolutely outstanding stuff!

Not to be outdone, you have then congratulated yourselves for your changes to DFRB and DFRDB, and desperately you cling to this policy life raft. There are 57,000 former ADF members in that scheme that ended in 1992— (Time expired)

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