David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government must rule out the recommendations of the Commission of Audit to reduce Defence staffing to 1998 levels. Before the election, the Abbott government promised that there would be no cuts to Defence, but the Commission of Audit has in fact recommended massive cuts to the number of civilian Defence personnel who support the Australian Defence Force. The Commission of Audit ignores the fact that over the past 10 years, under successive governments, there has been a deliberate decision to civilianise some 1,000 ADF positions, helping the department run more efficiently and, indeed, more cost effectively.

The Secretary for Defence, Dennis Richardson, said:

Try telling someone in Special Operations Command that a civilian in the Australian Signals Directorate is 'back-end' and, by implication, not particularly essential to the task in hand. Try telling a fighter pilot that civilian engineers and technicians are not essential to their operational capability. Try telling ADF personnel on operations that civilians responsible for their pay and allowances are less than essential.

The fact is that these massive cuts to civilian Defence staff will be felt by the entire Australian Defence Force. Civilian staff are vital to the overall capability of the ADF and they include highly skilled, highly specialist staff. The government must rule out the recommendations made in the Commission of Audit, and it must guarantee that these cuts will not impact on the intelligence, ICT or technical divisions of the department. We have already seen $120 million cut from Defence intelligence capabilities. That is your work.