Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair, to start off with, for his generous comments. I don't doubt the member for Blair's intent or his genuine concern in relation to this issue. He has been the chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Joint Committee since the government came in. I've spent a lot of time with him over the years, but, respectfully, on this point I will disagree with him.

Over the last five years, I've had the privilege of serving this parliament as either the chair or the deputy chair of the Defence Subcommittee for the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Joint Committee—with the exception of the glory days when I was the Speaker! In those times, when we were in government, we sought to bring a number of changes to the subcommittee, whether it was under the late Senator Jim Molan or under the current shadow defence minister, or other members of the committee. When we were in government, we saw that the existing Defence Subcommittee was not working as it should. The member for Paterson would know that because she was my deputy chair for some time, when I was the chair.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a senior member of the Defence Force or Defence itself said: 'Sorry, Mr Wallace. We can't answer that question. We're not in the appropriate room, and you don't have the appropriate clearances.' How we could have civilian parliamentary oversight over our Defence Force and the Department of Defence in those circumstances is absolutely beyond me. The Defence Subcommittee, in its current make-up, is fundamentally flawed. It is broken. As we enter into what I think most people in this chamber and most Australians would recognise is the most dangerous geopolitical period since 1945, it is utterly inadequate to be in a situation where civilian parliamentary oversight of our defence forces is inadequate. We are on a ship and we are heading towards the rocks.

That's why, in a recent inquiry, both Labor members and coalition members agreed—it was a recommendation in the war powers inquiry report—that this committee be established. I want to congratulate the government on picking up that recommendation. It's a sensible recommendation, and I support it wholeheartedly. We must have greater parliamentary civilian oversight of our defence forces and the Department of Defence. That is a no-brainer. With the advent of AUKUS, and the amount of money that this country is going to be spending on the defence of this nation, we have to have appropriate civilian oversight.

So I'm on board with the bill, but it comes with a 'but'. This is not a matter of partisan politics. The government want to enable people who are not of parties of government, namely the crossbench and the Greens, to serve on this committee, and that troubles me deeply, just as it troubled me deeply when the government introduced a similar amendment to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, of which I am the deputy chair. I agree with the member for Blair in this regard. For these sorts of committees, which hear classified information at a top-secret level—both PJCIS and, if this committee ever gets up, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence—it is vital that they are able to hear evidence to a top-secret level and that we are able to question senior members of the defence department and ADF members. We can't be just blown off, as has happened to me so many times in this place. The importance of this committee, in my view, means it has to be constrained to members in this House who are members of parties of government. When you pull apart the provisions of the Intelligence Services Act, in relation to the establishment of the PJCIS and who sits on it, they are mirrored by the provisions of the PJCD—this new defence committee.

How do you get to be on this committee? Effectively, you are handpicked by the Prime Minister of the day, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition. So it's very clear—and I think there's some more work to be done on all of this—that to serve on this committee you actually don't need a security classification. You don't need to be vetted by our security agencies, in the same way that the Minister for Defence or any other minister of the crown is not vetted. This is a flaw in our existing system. Because there is no vetting, we rely upon the Prime Minister of the day and his judgement and that of the opposition leader and his or her judgement to confer and say: 'Who's an appropriate person to be on this committee? Who do we know that will receive classified information at a top-secret level and not walk out of here and leak it to the media or, worse, leak it to foreign foes or, worse, use it as political leverage?'

There are provisions in the Intelligence Services Act and the Defence Act that would provide for serious terms of imprisonment for anyone who broke those laws. But what really, really concerns me is that the government is going to use the opportunity to appoint the crossbench—to appoint Greens and to appoint Independents—in the event of perhaps a hung parliament at the next election. That really worries me: 'You support me, you give me your number, you guarantee supply, and I'll give you a job on the PJCIS or the PJCD.'

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