David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to two documents that have been tabled in this chamber this morning. The first is the sixth interim report of the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce, the DART. This is the three-monthly report provided to me and the Attorney-General by the head of the task force, the Hon. Len Roberts-Smith. I would like to personally thank, and put on the record my thanks, Len Roberts Smith and his team for the outstanding work that they have done in addressing the matter of Defence abuse in recent times.

I am very grateful for the report. It makes clear that significant and positive progress is being made in dealing with some of the 2,400 complaints to the DART. While I will have more to say on the future of the DART following the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee inquiry, in consultation with the Attorney-General and the head of the DART, I really wanted to say a few words about the second document that was tabled today.

The second document is the DART's report on abuse at HMAS Leeuwin. The report is a record of allegations of widespread serious and institutionalised abuse experienced by more than 200 junior recruits—young men, or I should say children, aged between 15 and 17 years of age—who trained at HMAS Leeuwin between the 1960s and the 1980s. Certainly, many of the boys who were trained at HMAS Leeuwin were not abused or mistreated; but that is no particular triumph because for a significant number of the boys who trained with them, training was a horror and something that has profoundly damaged them, with significant adverse consequences for the way they live, and have lived, their lives. I have read the report and I have to say that I am very, very disturbed by some of the things I have read. More personally, I can tell you that I am profoundly moved by the direct and courageous way these men were able to revisit and recount events that occurred when they were children.

All Australians would, and should, be shocked and appalled at many of the stories captured in this report. These are things that should never have happened. They should never have happened to anyone, and certainly not to some 200 children who were under our care. The report is a powerful record of things past, things that were done and things remembered. Along with the repeated stories of sexual assault and humiliation, there is one quote that particularly upset me. It came from a man who said that, while he could tell his father some of the things that happened to him, he could not tell him everything:

I was too ashamed to tell my dad all the graphic details of the sexual attacks. Shame and discussed, mingled with self-hatred ,is a very powerful deterrent to spilling guts even when it could save you.

No-one should have to feel this way, and certainly no-one in our care. No-one in the Australian Navy, the Australian Army for the Australian air force—in fact, no person in any workplace in Australia—should ever feel they cannot tell their family about what happens to them at work. No-one should ever feel that they cannot save themselves by speaking up.

As many senators know, I am very proud to be Australia's Defence minister; it is the best job in government. As the Defence minister I am making it my business and my quest, and the business of every person in the Australian Defence Force, to make each section, platoon, flight, ship or brigade a better place to be. In the next few weeks I will have more to say about how to make the Australian Defence Force a better place—a place that is, simply put, more just.

I do note the report's comment that complaints of abuse occurring at recruiting training schools make up very high proportion of the complaints received by the task force. As I have said before, Defence is on a pathway to significant cultural change—and I will have more to say about that, too, in the future. I also note that the head of the task force believes that a royal commission may not necessarily result in a broader understanding of the nature and extent of the abuse at HMAS Leeuwin than is provided in the report. However, I note that many of the allegations of abuse fall within the terms of reference of the current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse and I understand that the head of the task force will be working closely with the HMAS Leeuwin men, seeking their consent to hand their information to that royal commission.

There are many stories in the report. Senators will be profoundly disturbed and appalled by many of them. You will also be moved by the courage, as I have said, of the men who have come forward to tell their stories now. We need to do more, we must do more and we will do more. We owe nothing less to our young people in the Australian Defence Force, their parents and, in particular, those children of HMAS Leeuwin who were so hurt and so damaged and were unable to save themselves. They were, quite frankly, utterly abandoned.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I would like to make a brief statement in relation to today's report on abuse at HMAS Leeuwin. The abuse detailed in the defence abuse review tribunal's report is appalling and I extend my sympathies on behalf of the Labor Party to the victims of this horrific treatment. I would like to thank the task force for their dedicated work on this report and the more than 200 former junior recruits who have shown commendable courage in providing personal accounts to the task force. I would also like to commend the Chief of the Defence Force and the service chiefs for the good work they have done and continue to do to prevent all forms of abuse in the ADF. Labor will continue to support the ADF leadership with their ongoing program of cultural change.

Sitting suspended from 13:58 to 14:00