ADJOURNMENT

Senator CICCONE (Victoria) (19:29): I rise this evening to welcome Flight Lieutenant Evans to Parliament House this week. He is spending his time with me and my team as part of the ADF Parliamentary Program. Since its introduction in 2003, the parliamentary program with the Australian Defence Force has given ADF members the opportunity to step outside their usual working environment and gain a unique insight into how decisions are debated and made in this place.

It also works the other way, and for many of us as parliamentarians I know quite a few senators in the chamber this evening have participated in and had the opportunity to meet people in the ADF and hear directly about their experiences. Flight Lieutenant Evans joined the Royal Australian Air Force back in 2019, I'm reliably informed, as an aspiring armament engineer officer.

His work involves integrating and assessing weapons and countermeasure systems across a range of ADF aircraft and platforms. It's an area that we need a lot more men and women in our ADF to work in. It's a very technical role but a very important one that ultimately comes down to making sure our personnel have the systems and the technology that keep our aircraft safe, capable and ready to operate.

It is great to have him spend the week in my office. I thank him for his contributions, and I'm sure he's finding his time here in the parliament—and in the chamber this evening—worthwhile. Welcome.

I also take this opportunity to recognise another important contribution to Australia's national security. Twenty-five years ago, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute began with a deceptively simple idea—that Australia's strategic policy would be better if the thinking behind it was contested, not comfortable. ASPI's establishment back in 2001 was a genuinely bipartisan undertaking.

We saw, a few weeks ago, former prime minister John Howard and former opposition leader Kim Beazley reflect on that founding spirit, writing that ASPI has consistently exerted a positive influence on Australia's security policy and that spirit above politics and in the national interest has shaped ASPI into what it is today—and it is continuing to grow with much respect.

Over more than two decades, ASPI's researchers have challenged thinking on border security, on terrorism, on critical minerals and on defence preparedness, and put climate and food security on the national agenda before it was fashionable to do so. That same spirit led to the establishment of ASPI's Women in Defence and Security Network back in 2014, opening doors and building pathways for women in defence, national security and foreign policy.

I pay tribute to and acknowledge the outgoing executive director, Justin Bassi, who last week advised that he will be leaving the organisation. Under Justin's leadership, ASPI has built resilience through a period of profound international disruption, from research on artificial intelligence and the Indo-Pacific to convening the Sydney Dialogue on critical technologies.

I thank him for his service and, on a personal note, wish him very well for his future with his family. He is someone that I consider a friend and a mentor on these policies on national security and defence. The strategic environment of 2026 bears little resemblance to that of 2001, and that only makes ASPI's role more important and more necessary.

As ASPI marks 25 years, let the next 25 be defined by the same founding spirit and courage to challenge conventional thinking. I congratulate ASPI on its contribution to Australia's national security debate and the strategic debate more broadly.