MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator BLYTH (South Australia) (17:06): I commend Senator Lambie for bringing this motion to the Senate today. Labor has a terrible plan to partially or fully divest 67 Defence sites across Australia. It's reckless, it's short-sighted and it is a complete betrayal of not just our defence forces but also our national security.
In my home state of South Australia, four sites are scheduled to be fully or partially divested, with approximately 400 cadets, 150 reservists and 50 full-time ADF personnel affected by these sales. The irony is not lost on the coalition that this government claims that we are living in the most dangerous strategic environment since the end of World War II and they are selling off critical defence assets on a short-term, money-raising measure.
Defence land is not something that a future government can simply recreate in 10 or 20 years time, when we may need it. Once this strategically located metropolitan land is sold off, it will be near impossible to get back, and this is at a time when Australia needs to be looking to extending its reserve force and looking at how we will deploy in a case of conflict near our shores.
Senator Lambie went into some detail on what is happening in the strategic environment that we're living in. In terms of what is surplus to need, the coalition realises that underutilised assets certainly should be divested where they are not used. There are empty blocks of lands that are included in these 67 sites, but there are also deeply historic and symbolic sites included in this that have a huge amount of Australia's defence history attached to them.
Simply selling them off and expecting that history to be able to be put somewhere else so that we can have what the Labor government is calling a modern defence force is simply farcical. History is a huge part of our defence forces. Going to war is not something we should ever take lightly, and we should always have those reminders on hand and in sight.
Not only is the historical significance of these sites vitally important; strategically, these sites sit in very, very important parts of metropolitan Australia. As Senator Ciccone mentioned, the committee had the privilege of traveling to see some of these sites. Some of them are strategically located to protect assets.
Maybe it's other defence sites or maybe it's capital cities. We need to make sure that we have the capability in Australia to defend not only our defence assets but also where people are living. In times of crisis, we must be able to draw on that strong sense of national identity.
That's hard to do if cadets can no longer go to bases that are close to their homes. In Tasmania, we heard of the closure of a whole lot of defence assets there in the sell-off and that cadets would have to travel an extra couple of hours to participate in a cadet program. That is unacceptable.
Why would we make it more difficult for young people to get involved in a cadet program and why would we make it more difficult for everyday Australians to join the reserves when we are living in the most dangerous strategic times since the end of World War II? Australia has been very lax in its own national security. Australia doesn't have the manufacturing capability that we once had during the Second World War.
We are not going to be able to go into refrigerator manufacturers, washing machine manufacturers or textile manufacturers and utilise that space. We just don't have it. It is incredibly important that we take this very, very seriously.
Once these assets are sold, once they are sold off to become dense housing, we will never ever be able to get them back. We will lose a generation of cadets and we will lose a generation of reservists when we need them most.