Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on two very serious issues within my shadow portfolio area of defence. These issues highlight the continual failings and mismanagement of this government and the Minister for Defence. On the SAS pay issue, it is now some five months since the opposition exposed at Senate estimates hearings the pay scandal affecting scores of special forces soldiers which saw some soldiers facing debts of up to $50,000 and having their salaries reduced by tens of thousands of dollars.

The problem arose when a Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal ruling came into effect in August last year and was backdated to 9 August 2007. A number of serious anomalies occurred in the implementation of this ruling which resulted in numerous SAS soldiers being assessed as not being formally qualified for many of the competencies for which they were being paid. As the decision was backdated these soldiers incurred debts, in some cases as high as $50,000. Further to questioning within Senate estimates hearings I also raised the issue in the House on 22 October 2008, referring to documents tabled that revealed that a significant number of SAS members had incurred debts and that, due to debt recovery action, these soldiers had in some cases been left with a take-home pay of only $250 per fortnight and that interest on their debts was at 7.2 per cent.

I asked the Minister for Defence to immediately intervene to overturn this and the minister unreservedly guaranteed in the parliament that the problem would be fixed. He said:

I am aware of the very, very serious issue he raises and can report to the House that the problem facing our special forces soldiers relates to a decision of the independent Defence Remuneration Tribunal of August 2007. I can also report that special forces headquarters has been working on this issue for some time. I can further report that Defence has agreed to stop any recovery of those, what might be deemed to be, overpayments.

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I know that all members of the House will agree and, indeed, all members of the Australian community will agree that all of our servicemen and women, but in particular in this case our special forces who are doing such important and dangerous work in Afghanistan, are due every consideration and every reward for the work they do. I can guarantee to the House that this problem will be fixed.

That was Minister Fitzgibbon, Hansard, 22 October 2008. On 25 October 2008 the minister travelled to Perth and gave similar assurances to the regiment in person. Yet despite these assurances the problem was not fixed. Recently, the opposition was able to produce documentation in the form of Salary Variation Advice that clearly shows that this problem continued long after the minister’s assurances and that debt recovery action was still being taken as late as 22 January this year despite repeated assurances that it had ceased. The simple truth is that this minister gave his assurance that this would be fixed, and it was not.

These guys are out there doing the hard yards in the war on terror. They are away from their family, operating in the harshest of environments and putting their life on the line every day. It is an absolute disgrace that they should face this kind of stress and hardship when the minister was aware of their plight and gave his repeated assurances that the problem would be rectified. These soldiers tried for months to get this problem addressed and yet, despite being made fully aware of the issue, their minister failed to intervene and failed to help. He sent them to the war and then sent them the bill!

Only after exhausting the options available to them did a number of these soldiers seek the help and advice of their member of parliament. And what happened? They were threatened. These young men from whom we ask so much were threatened. In an email sent to members of the SAS Regiment on Friday, 20 February 2009, they were ordered not to go outside the regiment to resolve or discuss this or any other pay related issue regardless of what it was. It went on to inform them that any personnel found contravening this order would have disciplinary action taken against them under the DFDA, with possible removal from the unit.

In an attempt to avoid embarrassment in a second round of Senate estimates hearings these guys were threatened. This amounts to more than embarrassment. The minister’s handling of this issue has been nothing short of a national disgrace. We have been told that this threatening order came from a genuine desire for soldiers to raise their concerns in an appropriate manner. I would suggest that a soldier raising very genuine concerns with their member of parliament, their elected representative, after months of frustration, dissatisfaction and uncertainty is entirely appropriate.

This is an issue of confidence. Just as we, in parliament and as citizens, need to have confidence in our Defence Force personnel, our soldiers need to have confidence in Defence and in their Minister for Defence. How can the members of the SAS Regiment possibly have that faith and confidence in a minister who for five months was at best ineffectual and at worst negligent, while they experienced what, in many cases, has been a very distressing circumstance? There has now clearly been a complete collapse in confidence and relations between the minister and the defence department. This has serious ramifications for our troops serving on the ground in Afghanistan and elsewhere, who need to know their minister will go to bat for them.

This issue has dragged on for months now and, despite the engagement of an independent auditor, is no closer to resolution today than it was in October last year. This minister failed in his duty to protect the wages and conditions of these soldiers. He has failed to honour his repeated promises in this House that these problems would be fixed and he has failed to maintain the critical relationship the minister must have with his own department.

The problem will not be solved until these soldiers are recognised as appropriately qualified and are paid what they are owed. These are soldiers who were previously judged as fully qualified with all trade competencies by special operations command and who are now, because of a bureaucratic nightmare, not recognised in the system as properly qualified to receive the pay to which they are entitled—the pay which they had been receiving up until this mess. It will not be solved until it is guaranteed that no disciplinary action or acts of retribution will be taken against any soldier for discussing this matter with their member of parliament or anyone else. It will only be solved when it is guaranteed that not only all the debts relating to trade competencies or qualifications incurred as a result of this determination will be waived but all of the moneys deducted and interest charged will be reimbursed to the soldiers. It will only be solved when the minister takes responsibility for this mess. This happened on his watch and he has failed to intervene effectively on the soldiers’ behalf.

The second issue I wish to raise is the security of local defence industry jobs. Today I called on the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence to take immediate action to protect the hundreds of Australian defence industry jobs currently at risk as a result of the government’s $40 million investment in the American Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program, a decision that is threatening any chance for Australian industry to compete for the LAND 121 Phase 4 program. The LAND 121 Phase 4 program will see around 1,300 light protected mobility vehicles acquired to replace some of the Army’s 4,000 Land Rovers.

The government has invested $40 million in the US program to fund nine joint light tactical vehicle prototypes to be built in the US. There has, however, been no funding as yet allocated for a locally developed prototype and no clear statement on the process for engagement with local industry. Local industry has effectively been shut out of the process at the expense of hundreds of Australian jobs. Defence contractor Thales delivered the highly successful Bendigo built Bushmaster vehicle and there is no reason to believe that a smaller, lighter variant of the Bushmaster cannot also be developed right here. In fact, plans for a ‘Baby Bushmaster’ already exist. The development and delivery of a project like this would directly employ hundreds of people from the various trades through to highly skilled engineers and industrial designers and indirectly hundreds along the necessary supply lines.

The importance of defence industry to a regional community such as Bendigo cannot be overstated. The current Bushmaster contract runs out in 2011 and this is a golden opportunity that local industry cannot afford to miss out on. The government must take immediate steps to ensure that local industry has a fighting chance to participate in this critical program. The government must engage with local industry and there must be funding allocated immediately for a locally developed prototype. Australian jobs should be the government’s first priority, and there are 300 to 400 Australian defence industry jobs on the line, not to mention an export potential for a lighter variant of this even greater than that of the current Bushmaster.

This government’s failure to invest in Australian industry and failure to protect Australian jobs is inexplicable. That the government would sacrifice local jobs in industry and invest $40 million in an offshore prototype project when we have the proven capability to produce such a product here simply beggars belief. I repeat the calls I made publicly today—that is, for the government to step up and immediately provide funding so that an Australian prototype can be developed. It is no good waiting until the prototypes are developed in the US and the intellectual property is held in the US and then expecting Australian companies to compete when timelines will be against them. The time to provide that funding for Australian industry is now. The time to protect the long-term viability of those jobs in Bendigo is now. I am surprised that the member for Bendigo has been absolutely quiet on the ‘Baby Bushmaster’ program, considering he had an awful lot to say about the Bushmaster program when the Howard government was developing such a device.