House debates

Monday, 2 December 2019

Private Members' Business

Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program

1:10 pm

Photo of Julie OwensJulie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second that. Every member of this parliament should avail themselves of this wonderful exchange program with Australia's military. I'm looking forward to my ninth one next year. There's only one member of parliament who has done more than me, and, if I hadn't got the flu when I was supposed to go up in that jet that day, I would be No. 1. It is an amazing thing to do, and everybody should do it. It can be fun. It can also be incredibly scary. But we don't do it for the fun; we do it because we in this place have a significant role in the funding of our military and ensuring our military is capable of doing what we need it to do.

I don't live in a military town, although my father was in the Army, so I used to. But most of us live in places where you can live your life and not really give the military much of a thought, because they're not around. We're arguably one of the few countries in the world—probably the only one—which haven't had significant warfare on their own soil. People who live in Sydney, who were born in Australia and whose parents and grandparents lived in Australia have not experienced war on our own soil. So it's incredibly important that we, as members of parliament, get to know these extraordinary men and women who do things that we ask them to do in the defence of Australia. They are amazing people. They're incredibly highly trained. When you go to the places that I've been to and spend time with the people that I've spent time with, you understand that it isn't just a story that we have one of the best trained militaries in the world; we actually do. They are an extraordinary group of people.

I've been incredibly fortunate in the eight trips that I've done so far. I did my first one at NORFORCE up on the Tiwi Islands. I spent 10 days out in the bush in a swag with the Indigenous trainees. It was an amazing experience, getting to know the way the Australian military addresses defence of the incredibly vast desert in the Northern Territory, a place that you couldn't actually invade and that you can't actually defend. It is incredibly difficult. It has challenges of its own but was a wonderful experience.

Then I spent 10 days at Kapooka, where my father did his training when he joined the Army when he was 30. Again, my father had told me what to expect, but I think the high tower where I abseiled face-forward off the third floor was a new experience. I don't think they had that when Dad went through. Again, it is a way for people to experience absolutely genuine fear and come to terms with that.

I then spent 10 days in Afghanistan. I'm not going to talk much about that. It was something that everyone in this place should do: spend time with our military in a place of extraordinary danger, where they are doing something that most of us wouldn't dream of doing. It was extraordinary. The election was called while I was there, actually. Just as an aside, I couldn't tell anyone I was there, so I disappeared from the election for about eight days and arrived back a little late. But, again, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I then went to East Timor the year before our reservists pulled out; I was with a Reserve troop there, one of the officers of which came from my electorate. We did riot training there with the Kiwis. It was, again, an amazing experience to see how good our peacekeepers are. We hear how good they are, but they really are as good as people say.

I then spent a stint with the Navy off Darwin. Then I went to the Gloucester Cup in Singleton. I went out with the troops into the field there, with live ammunition—again, an extraordinary opportunity. But the worst, I guess, and the best, was at HMAS Albatross and Creswell, where I did the upside-down-helicopter underwater escape training, where they strap you in with five points into a helicopter, flip it upside down and dump it six metres into a pool, and you have to get out before you drown. I also did their tear gas training; so I was tear-gassed as well. I think I'm the only member of parliament to do it. The commanding officer was very, very worried that I might not survive the underwater helicopter escape training, because all of the Navy people had emergency air on their chest; I didn't, because I hadn't done that training, so I went down without any emergency backup. But, again, it was extraordinary.

This year, I went to Jigalong remote community in north-western Australia with the Army. Again, it was amazing watching the engineering troops set up a camp in the desert, with full waste control and full water monitoring, leaving a very small footprint. They were an amazing group of people and everybody in this place should do it, more than once.

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