Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by recognising Dr Peter de Jersey and his wife, Beverley, in the gallery this afternoon. Peter and Bev have given long service to medicine in North Queensland—particularly, in Peter’s case, to renal medicine. The community of North Queensland recognises that service. I would also like to recognise other service in North Queensland, and that is in relation to the Australian Defence Force. Last Friday I was privileged to be at Townsville airport farewelling soldiers who were going overseas. It was quite a significant farewell because at one aerobridge there was a group of soldiers and an aircraft flying off to Iraq and, at the same time, on the adjacent aerobridge there was a group of soldiers flying off to East Timor.

These were men and women from Australia’s largest Army base in Townsville, Lavarack Barracks. These men and women give fantastic and professional service to our country, and the service that they give—the humanitarian service, the peacekeeping service and so on—in other areas of the world is very much appreciated by the countries where they are deployed. I also pay tribute to the brigadier who is leading the deployment to East Timor, Brigadier Mick Slater. Brigadier Slater comes with a wealth of experience in command, having been in 1999 the commander of the 2nd Battalion when it went first in Australia’s name to East Timor in those very difficult conditions, as they were. They are not so difficult now.

Elements of every battalion and regiment at Lavarack have gone to Timor, and our community—our garrison city—of Townsville very much respects the work that they do. But we also respect the families who are left behind and the support that they give to their loved ones who have been deployed overseas for long periods of time. I was thus very distressed by the comments overnight of Reverend Tim Costello from World Vision. He was utterly wrong. Reverend Tim Costello went to East Timor for a day. It was no more than a media exercise. He wanted to see Brigadier Slater in relation to protecting World Vision assets and food. The brigadier saw him and offered a solution to protect the food. That was not taken up by Tim Costello, but Tim Costello came back and made media comments that the ADF were not helping. That is absolutely disgraceful. It does not help relations with the ADF, and it certainly does not help Tim Costello’s credibility whatsoever. I reject what he said. I think it was a very poor effort indeed.