Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make some comments on the Department of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade estimates. The estimates hearing was opened by the Chief of the Defence Force, General Hurley. He said, first of all, that there had been some controversy in the media about the bodies of Australian soldiers who were being brought back from the war in Afghanistan being placed in their coffins the wrong way up. That, of course, had caused a great deal of distress to the families concerned. I thought I should repeat General Hurley's comments. He said:

... I felt so strongly about the allegations being made and the potential to cause undue distress to the soldiers' families and members of the ADF that I ensured that the department's responses to the journalist's questions last week were drawn from the inquiry outcomes to date, and they were quite detailed.

He went on to say that the Defence Force was very concerned to ensure always that the bodies of soldiers who came back from Afghanistan would be orientated correctly in coffins. He wanted to assure the families that the remains of their loved ones would be very much respected and treated with great care by the Defence Force.

The other important matter raised in Defence estimates, this time by the secretary of the department, Mr Duncan Lewis, concerned the massive cuts to defence spending imposed by the government in the recent budget. Defence was cut by $5.45 billion as a contribution to the government so the government could come up with its minor, small and measly surplus. It is a very small surplus indeed.

The removal of $5.45 billion from the defence budget is going to have very serious and long-term implications for the defence forces of Australia. It is said that it takes our defence forces back to the state of readiness we saw in 1938, when they were grossly understaffed and underequipped. It is certainly going to make an enormous difference to the planned program to build 12 new submarines—obviously that will need to be shelved, as will many other new weapons platforms and programs. Mr Lewis said:

... these savings will not impact on current operations in Afghanistan, East Timor or the Solomon Islands. They will not impact upon the equipment that our men and women need to do their jobs on these operations. It has been a challenging exercise to find these savings.

One can imagine how challenging finding $5.45 billion worth of savings in the defence budget will be and what a big impact that will have on our future defence procurement and the effectiveness of our defence forces.

The third and final point I make about the Defence estimates is that there has recently been a Defence Force posture review report into the need for increased defence protection on the north-west coast. General Hurley, the Chief of the Defence Force, did concede at estimates that the Defence Force had somewhat neglected the defence of the north-west over the last decade. This is a very important area of Australia because there is now hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investment in oil and gas developments off the north-west coast, and there is a feeling that they are very important assets for Australia as a whole and ought to be given more defence protection than they are.

I believe that Major General Jeffery, who subsequently became the Governor-General, referred to the need for increased Defence Force presence on the north-west coast some 10 years ago. Regrettably, nothing very much has developed over those 10 years. The Chief of the Defence Force did undertake that he and his colleagues from the defence forces command group would go to the north-west to inspect these facilities and to take into account the Australian Defence Force Posture Review overseen by Dr Hawke and Ric Smith, which reported on the defence capability plan for the north-west. I look forward to that report being brought down.