Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) | Hansard source

I thank all members who have spoken on this important bill, the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2024. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, established by this bill, will play a vital role in injecting greater parliamentary transparency, accountability and oversight into the Defence portfolio. The government believes this enhanced scrutiny, in a classified setting, is critical, given the strategic circumstances our nation faces.

This should be something on which everyone in this parliament agrees. We need unity. We need consistency on this issue in parliament. Indeed, the shadow minister previously described parliamentary scrutiny of defence, in 2020, as 'broken and needs fixing', and said, 'This is an area of urgent reform.' But when the opposition had a chance to fix this, through this bill, they showed they are inconsistent, indecisive and weak. That comes from the fact that the member for Canning has foreshadowed a motion to amend the membership provisions of this bill.

This bill derives from a report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, on their inquiry into international armed-conflict decision-making. Recommendation 6 of that report was to establish a joint statutory committee on defence—the subject of this bill. Paragraph 3.86 of the committee's report states:

The Committee is of the view that a statutory committee on Defence matters should be modelled on the PJCIS to provide similar levels of oversight and accountability for Defence as applies to intelligence agencies, including scrutiny of annual reports, strategy and planning for capability development, acquisitions, and contingencies.

That was the bipartisan view of the committee that recommended the establishment of this very important committee.

The Liberal members on that committee accepted and supported that recommendation. So that is what the government has done; the government has accepted the recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and has modelled the membership provisions of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence exactly on the same provisions that exist in schedule 1, part 3 of the Intelligence Services Act, which establishes the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The provisions relating to the appointment of members are exactly the same—that, in the House:

… the Prime Minister must consult with the Leader of each recognised political party that is represented in the House and does not form part of the Government.

There is a similar provision for the Senate.

There you have consistency between the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and this proposed committee, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence—accepting and adopting the recommendations of the bipartisan report. Yet we've had some Liberal members come in and say they now want to change that—that they don't accept that recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in their report. In fact, the amazing thing is that two of the members who spoke in this debate, in support of the amendments about to be moved by the member for Canning, were actually members of that committee and supported a different view when they put their names to the report from which this committee is derived. I'm referring to the member for Fisher and the member for Riverina, who came in here and said: 'Ignore what we said in the committee report. We've now changed our view, and we're going to go with the view of the member for Canning.' That is inconsistent and it is indecisive, and the one thing that Australia cannot afford now in the Defence portfolio is inconsistency and indecisiveness, because that equates to weakness and Australia cannot afford to be weak, given the current strategic circumstances that we face.

That is why I can indicate that the government will not be supporting the opposition's proposed amendments, which seek to exclude, in legislation, a section of the parliament, is not representative of the parliament and certainly does not represent this bill and this committee operating in the exact same way as the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

This bill was a product of a bipartisan report from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and we believe that that bipartisanship must be maintained in the approach to this bill and the membership of this proposed committee. We cannot be inconsistent when it comes to membership of this committee. This is not a bipartisan approach that's been proposed by the opposition, and that inconsistency will be a weakness. That is why the government will not be supporting the amendments from the opposition and why we will act to be consistent with the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and adopt the exact same provisions as those that exist with respect to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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