Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

Furthermore, I want to pay credit to the member for Menzies, who got to his feet and corrected the record.

One thing in that 15-minute spiel that the member for Kennedy did not talk about was the defacing over the weekend of memorials on Anzac Parade. I went past there this morning because I'd heard reports over the weekend that some of those memorials had been defaced. I saw it with my own eyes. On the Vietnam memorial and on the Korean War Memorial, vandals had spray-painted all sorts of rubbish, frankly, on there. As I said in a doorstop this morning to the media, that is an absolute disgrace and dishonours the men and women of the Australian Defence Force who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, as well as their families and all those that have served. I'm glad that the Prime Minister so strongly spoke to that in question time.

The need for this bill—what this bill is about—is the creation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence. I don't need to tell honourable members that our strategic circumstances have become far more serious in recent times. That has been confirmed through a number of reviews. The Defence Strategic Review and the National Defence Strategy are just two of the documents. We understand that there has not been a time in recent history where strategic circumstances have been so unsure without an appropriate level of strategic reassurance from, in particular, China, which has increased spending on its military by 75 per cent. That's a meteoric expansion of defence capability and, as I say, with no reassurance about the strategic intent. Obviously, that becomes a concern to countries like ours which want to maintain a strategic equilibrium, as the foreign minister Penny Wong has said, and which want to ensure that countries, large and small, can enjoy their sovereignty within the framework of a rules based order.

It is important that this parliament is able not only to examine Defence projects to build capability but also to have the opportunity in a classified setting to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place, because we will be increasing our defence spending so that we have a capability that will be able to deter those that might seek to coerce us in the future. When we talk about an expansion of Australia's defence spending, it will expand from 2.04 per cent of GDP in the last budget to 2.4 per cent of GDP over the next 10 years in order to ensure that we've got the capability to back up our words. Capability and intent are important for deterrence, which the Defence Strategic Review made very clear is so essential for these uncertain times.

Of course, with civilian oversight of the military, as we have in our great democracy, we need to ensure that there is an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny so that there's good decision-making and a really efficient and prudent use of those taxpayer funds but also that there is a more informed parliament and, by extension through us, public. I would just mention that last week, here in Canberra, Richard Marles, the defence minister and member for —how do you say it?

An honourable member: Corio

The member for Corio launched a paper that I've written for the Lowy Institute around AUKUS that went exactly to the requirement for AUKUS and, in particular, pillar I—the SSNs, the submarines—as part of our deterrence. It also spoke to the environment and times in which we live. That parliamentary scrutiny that I've talked about and the reason that we need to be writing and speaking about Defence strategic policy is part of that educational process of the public as well. What we want is a more informed parliament and good decision-making, but we also need to bring the public along with us so that there's sensible strategic decision-making for the future, not kneejerk, reactionary, performative politics that unfortunately we see more and more of these days. That is not helpful. We need evidence based public policy in Defence like we do in every other area.

The reason for our creating this Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, which will be established by the bill, is to inject a greater level of parliamentary transparency, accountability and oversight into the Defence portfolio in line with the Albanese government's commitment to transparency and accountability, evidenced by the fact, and this is just one example, that the National Anti-Corruption Commission has now been going for a year—not something those opposite were interested in seeing happen, like this committee, actually, in the past. I do acknowledge the supporters of this defence committee on the other side, but it certainly wasn't always the way. Whilst in government the coalition did not want and was on the record as not wanting this increased parliamentary scrutiny.

This committee will build on the useful and necessary scrutiny of Defence, particularly the major capability projects, where so much of defence funding is spent. The Senate estimates process obviously provides a level of transparency, but further scrutiny will be there by modelling this new defence committee, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which I'm proud to be a member of and is fantastically chaired by the member for Wills, who happens to be in the chamber with us. The member for Wills does a fantastic job on that committee, maintaining a bipartisan focus on the national interest, and that is what we have all hoped would again be the case with this Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence.

This committee will supersede and enhance the defence related functions currently undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade but put it up a level in its scrutiny and access to information. Establishing this committee is a priority of our government. We are very much committed to passing the enabling legislation as soon as practicable. To support the establishment of the committee we provided in the budget $17.5 million over a decade for the effective running of that committee to ensure it's resourced appropriately.

Just quickly, on the origins of the bill, it was a recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's inquiry into international armed conflict decision-making, which followed a referral from the DPM, the Deputy Prime Minister, the member for Corio. The inquiry was initiated to deliver a commitment of the Australian Labor Party's national platform. Previous inquiries have recommended the establishment of a statutory committee on defence. That was recommended back as far as 2018. As I mentioned, the Leader of the Opposition and many other members on the front bench opposite were members of that former government in 2019. But they disagreed with the creation of this statutory committee, and they said:

There are already substantial Parliamentary oversight measures in place for the Department of Defence. Australia has enjoyed a long period of broad bipartisan agreement on Defence policy, operations and force structure and additional measures to enhance bipartisanship are not necessary at this time.

That wasn't long ago. Where the former coalition government were unwilling to take this up, the Albanese government is acting—on the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, in particular.

This bill will create the committee responsible for reviewing, monitoring and reporting on the administration and operations of all Australian defence agencies, including the Australian Defence Force, the Department of Defence, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Signals Directorate. Those organisations will remain subject to oversight by the PJCIS. Just to clarify that: the ADF, the Department of Defence and the Department of Veterans' Affairs will be under the new PJCD committee, whilst DIO, AGO and ASD will remain subject to oversight by the PJCIS.

I could speak more on this, but I have another commitment in another place, and there are other speakers here to continue to outline why this is important and also some concerns that the bipartisan support for this may not be there. We need a bipartisan approach to this committee, as we do for the intelligence and security committee. We need a bipartisan approach for the testing of ideas, and also a bipartisan approach on the national interest.

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