Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) | Hansard source

I rise to support the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2024. First, I want to reflect—my feeling and what I think is the feeling of many in the parliament—that the first job of government and of parliament is to keep people safe. Defence and our defence capabilities really go to the heart of that. For me, this is a bill that increases the accountability of Defence and the transparency of Defence to the parliament, which I think is absolutely critical. Certainly when you look at the times that we are entering—where you're looking at increased spending in defence, but also the difficult defence environment that we are facing as clouds gather around the world—it's even more timely and more appropriate that Defence has greater parliamentary oversight, which this bill supports.

The other piece I'd like to note in relation to parliamentary oversight is the role of community engagement. I was concerned by a recent poll by the US Studies Centre, at the University of Sydney, which found that only 42 per cent of those polled thought the AUKUS submarines were worth the cost while 32 per cent actually opposed acquisition of nuclear powered submarines. I note this, not because of the merits or non-merits of the AUKUS agreement, but to make the point that if the community is not with the parliament and the government on its defence activities, then there is a real danger that these defence plans, which are many years in the making—often decades in the planning—are vulnerable.

It is critical that we do level with the community, that we really engage with the community on some of these major strategic defence questions that have arisen. I will cite, for example, AUKUS. Because it has support from both of the major parties there has not been a great deal of debate in the parliament about this. This has been an area of concern for members of the public, not least because they haven't had the opportunity that I think many would like to understand the reasons, the alternatives and why AUKUS was, and still is, the preferred approach for the government as well as the opposition. I've always said I support AUKUS, but I do believe that the community needs to have better engagement on this issue. I feel that this is an opportunity, through this parliamentary committee, to further do that.

I'd like to very briefly talk about the composition of the committee since this is an issue that members of the coalition such as the member for Fisher have brought up. His concern is that members of the crossbench could be contemplated as potential, though not necessary, members of this committee. I call on the coalition to reflect on what has been happening over a significant period of time and really culminated in the last election: 30 per cent of the country did not vote for a major party, and that has led to the largest crossbench in recent parliamentary history. I think the lesson from that election is really that people are concerned with what the major parties are doing in terms of building their trust, and they are looking for alternatives. I think that's really the message that the member for Fisher should take from this and consider separately: Why has a significant part of the community said they do not trust the major parties on the major issues? They would prefer an alternate to represent them, so why shouldn't that representation be borne out in a defence committee.

I note that members of the coalition have said, 'You can't trust the members of the crossbench not to leak or to not behave inappropriately.' I'm going to finish my speech with the observation that I'm a member of two committees—the economics committee and the Joint Standing Committee on Migration—and note that there's been one leak from one of my committees, the economics committee, and that was extremely concerning to me. But the one person who I know did not leak from that committee was the member of the crossbench—myself—because I wasn't there on the day of the leak. I wasn't there for the private hearing with the RBA and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Notes from that meeting were leaked to the Financial Review, and the one person who couldn't have done that was me because I wasn't there. I wasn't able to attend that day. I think that, when the coalition is particularly keen on calling the ethics of the crossbench to account, they perhaps might reflect on that experience and consider whether it is fair in that case and others and whether that is an accurate representation of the likely outcomes of these pieces. Certainly, I and members of the crossbench take our parliamentary duties extremely seriously, including the confidentiality of the committee process. Frankly, I was appalled to see that a committee would leak something like that, but that wasn't me. It was definitely the majors.

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