Doorstop - Parliament House

Topics: ADF support to Victoria, Belt and Road Initiative, Brereton Report

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SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

Well good morning. Today over a hundred ADF personnel have arrived from 3rd Brigade in Townsville and also from RAAF Base Sale to assist with hotel quarantine in Victoria for international arrivals. This makes it over 10,000 ADF personnel who have assisted states and territory governments this year with COVID-19 responses, and 3,000 in Victoria alone. I couldn’t be any prouder of what our men and women have been doing this year not only with COVID-19 Assist but also don’t forget, over 8,500 of our personnel worked for months and months on Operation Bushfire Assist to assist with the Black Summer Fires. So today is another landmark day. We now have ADF personnel in every state and territory supporting the COVID-19 response in quarantine. They have done a magnificent job – everything from working in aged care facilities, in hospitals, to COVID testing, to working to provide quarantine support both in some of the most remote locations for months on end across our nation and also in operations and planning. So can I just take this opportunity to thank all of our ADF men and women, and also the men and women of the Defence department itself who have done an extraordinary job for our nation. Thank you.

JOURNALIST:

Are you happy with the work that the Victorian Government is giving the ADF as part of the hotel quarantine measures, it’s been scaled back are you satisfied with that?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

Absolutely. We have provided, we have answered every request from Victoria except for one. The one that we haven’t accepted is to have up to two ADF personnel situated in every corridor in the seven quarantine and health hotels because we didn’t believe that was their role – they’re not law enforcement, they’re not security guards – and it would have taken literally hundreds of our ADF away from their families over Christmas. So we’ve got them doing exactly what they do best and the relationship with the Victorian Government throughout this process has been excellent.

JOURNALIST:

Just on the Victorian Government, do you think the Belt and Road initiative with China is in the national interest?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

Look that’s not a matter for me as Defence Minister.

JOURNALIST:

But personally?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

That is not an issue for me as Defence Minister and that is something for the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister to answer.

JOURNALIST:

Are there 60 SAS personnel threatening to quit over moves to disband the second battalion?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

What I will say in relation to the Brereton report is that I have read, and I have a full copy of the entire report, with the names redacted. I can tell you that this is the most serious issue that any Chief of Defence Force, any Minister for Defence and also any Prime Minister has every had to deal with in the history of our nation. I fully support the CDF and how he is approaching this. There is no quick fix to this. There are no easy solutions and there is no simple thing that will deal with the reasons for these multiple, many multiples of allegations of war crimes and of incredibly bad behaviour that does not reflect the best of the service of our men and women.

JOURNALIST:

Can you tell us whether the disbanding of that unit is being delayed?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

My understanding from the Chief of Defence Force is that it will proceed for the reasons that the Chief of Army and the Chief of Defence Force has said and given the gravity, given the gravity of the circumstances that have led to that, I fully support that. But my understanding is that the commemoration for that has been delayed, not cancelled.

JOURNALIST:

Why?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

Because the CDF has asked for all actions that are in response to the Brereton report be done under his Implementation Plan, so my understanding is that it has been delayed to be part of the Implementation Plan.

JOURNALIST:

When will the unit be disbanded?

SEN LINDA REYNOLDS:

That’s really a question for CDF. The unit itself, so the unit itself is not being disbanded, just to be very clear. But the squadron, the 2 Sabre Squadron will be disbanded but the CDF quite rightly is wrapping up all of these actions into a single Implementation Plan which given the gravity of the issues and the issues that will play out for many years, I think that is entirely appropriate action.

** End of transcript **