House debates Questions without Notice
Special Air Service Regiment
Ms Julie Bishop Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition
3:15 pm
My question is to the Minister for Defence. How many serving SAS soldiers stationed at Campbell Barracks in my electorate of Curtin have been hit with debt repayment notices regarding their salaries and how many thousands of dollars have they been forced to repay?
Joel Fitzgibbon Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence
The reality is that Defence cannot give me those numbers—
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
Harry Jenkins Speaker
Order! I remind honourable members that the Minister for Defence has the call.
Joel Fitzgibbon Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence
so farcical—
Harry Jenkins Speaker
The member for Mackellar will leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).
The member for Mackellar then left the chamber.
Joel Fitzgibbon Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence
so farcical is the state of the systems we have inherited. This is a question—
Ms Julie Bishop Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition
On a point of order, if this minister does not know how many soldiers—
Harry Jenkins Speaker
Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat—
Ms Julie Bishop Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition
are being expected to—
Harry Jenkins Speaker
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).
The member for Curtin then left the chamber.
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
Harry Jenkins Speaker
Order! The House will come to order. I am reliably informed that the minister is 20 seconds into his answer. Minister.
Joel Fitzgibbon Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence
Those issues go to a range of problems, including ICT problems and the inflexibility and lack of capacity of those systems and, of course, the informal process which was granting special forces soldiers competencies without a formal course. That is just a fact. I reaffirm my commitment to ensure that nobody wrapped up in the processes of the implementation of the defence force review tribunal’s determination will be adversely affected by this series of events.
I should say this: the opposition needs to be very careful here. There are a number of people who regularly incur overpayments and therefore debts. Some of them originally were wrapped up in the review tribunal’s determinations. They are no longer affected, because I have suspended that recovery process and they will be fixed. Others have debts for other reasons, and the opposition needs to be very careful to differentiate between those two or three or four or five different sets of people. My recommendation to the opposition is to stop playing politics with our special forces soldiers.