Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in continuation on the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025 and amendment 1 on sheet 3472 moved by Senator Shoebridge. The question is that the amendment be agreed to. A division is required. The division will need to be taken at a later date, as it is now after 6.30 pm.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just ask you for guidance—given we haven't been able to have the division, what's the effect of that? Do we bounce out of committee and proceed to the next item? Is that what happens?

Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe so, Senator Shoebridge. We're just getting confirmation on that.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cool. While we're getting that, I might just make a brief contribution. We saw this morning how the groupthink in here on war is so powerful. It's the groupthink between Labor, the coalition and One Nation, the three war parties, that now join together and are hunting for their next US war to agree on. That's the kind of groupthink that Labor and the coalition want to see on this new committee. We actually heard the coalition say out loud that they didn't want anyone on this committee who wasn't already signed up to AUKUS, to Donald Trump's next war, to the multibillion-dollar contracts with Lockheed Martin, or to the three-quarters of a trillion dollars in defence expenditure, largely on US weapons systems, which has been agreed to between the traditional two war parties, Labor and the coalition, now joined by the new war party, One Nation.

We heard them say it very clearly. That kind of groupthink—pro-war, pro-Trump, US forever-war groupthink—is exactly what saw Prime Minister Albanese, with Defence Minister Marles and Foreign Minister Wong, leap into supporting the latest US forever-war in Iran—a US-Israeli forever-war in Iran. That's the groupthink that they now want to happen in secret on a defence committee. They pretend that's somehow going to give the Australian public comfort that our strategy, our procurement and our defence policy will somehow be in the national interest. It's extraordinary. In fact, one of the more remarkable contributions came from Labor. They actually said, 'You know what the really powerful thing about this committee is going to be? The reason this committee is going to be so strong, and so protect the public interest and stop waste and corruption and mismanagement in Defence'—what's going to be so powerful about this as an oversight committee, according to Labor, is that it will all happen in secret and no-one will see. They actually said it! They said it—that the most powerful thing about this oversight committee that's going to hold Defence to account is that it will all happen in secret.

And your little groupthink will all happen in secret. Maybe you can all bring your little Donald Trump dolls, and you can all agree how you love your Donald Trump dolls, or your Benjamin Netanyahu dolls, or your little missiles, or whatever you want to bring in, and you can share, over your little groupthink toys, about how you really want to see Australia support the next US war. And there's never been a forever war from the United States that you haven't agreed. It probably is best that that happens in secret, because it would be ill-making for the public to see it. It would be sickening for the public to see the groupthink that is driving Australia down this dangerous and reckless path with defence.

We've seen the groupthink in action today, as you all charged in to find a way of supporting this illegal war on Iran. It's just a little insight for the public about the groupthink that's going to happen on this defence committee, where there won't be a war you won't want to join; there won't be a weapons manufacturer you don't want to fund; there won't be a post-politics career in defence that you don't want to seize with both hands; there won't be a cocktail party from a former Labor defence minister or a former Liberal defence minister who's now working in the defence industry that you won't want to go to and be schmoozed at. Maybe you can have your little cocktail events, with Christopher Pyne and co, or Kim Beazley and co, funded by Lockheed Martin or whatever global bottom-feeder from the arms industry that Christopher Pyne has found. You can find those groups and have your cocktail events. Maybe you can have your cocktail events in secret—have your little Lockheed Martin canapes in secret, or your Raytheon nibbles in secret, or your Israeli defence industry's soup in secret. You can share your meals, share your post-politics career and share your love of forever wars, and you can all do it in secret on this committee.

That's what it's about. It's about the groupthink, the love—the unthinking nature in which you've latched on to the United States, and your total inability to imagine a different way for Australia to engage in the world. It's your total inability to imagine a way in which Australia might actually distance itself from the United States and have its own independent defence policy, and actually treat its region and its geography and our neighbours as friends and our future, rather than as threats that you want to arm yourself against. It's your complete lack of imagination that's driving you to support this committee. And it's a lack of imagination that is so dangerous to this country and to our national defence and to our national interests. And it drags us into US forever wars. The reason you need this to happen in secret is because, if it happened in public, it would disgust the public.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the bill cannot proceed until the votes can be taken, I shall now report to the Senate.

Progress reported.

Further consideration of the bill in Committee of the Whole made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.