Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. I refer the minister to his guarantee to this House four months ago that he would fix the problem with SAS salaries. Is the minister aware that, as recently as four weeks ago, due to debt recovery action by the government, a serving SAS soldier received zero dollars in his pay packet and has been unable to make his home loan payments?

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. I am not aware of the particular case, although I have noticed that Senate Johnston has been bandying around a piece of paper—unwilling, by the way, to share it with me. So I invite the member to table it, so that I can, if possible—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Minister for Defence has the call.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that the names in the document have been blanked out—and I know that from Senate estimates—so there is not a privacy issue. It would be helpful, because, as I said, last October I immediately directed the CDF and the Chief of Army to put an immediate stop on any recovery action—a stop that has been in place up until this time. It could be that recovery for some other reason was taking place. If the opposition want to share the information with me, I will be happy to assist in any way that I can. Defence recovers debts for various reasons, and I am advised that, given the stop, this is not likely to be a case where someone has been affected by the implementation of the DFRT’s decision.