Mr FEENEY (Batman) (15:20): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a very important matter of public importance, because the failure of the Prime Minister to sack the Minister for Defence means that this government now crawls forward with yet another bleeding wound. It is plainly obvious that the Prime Minister must act. Dennis Shanahan posted in The Australian only a short time ago: 'David Johnston's job as defence minister "finished"' And we saw earlier from Paul Kelly, in today's edition of The Australian,that this government now confronts 'a growing crisis of trust'. This is a government going forward with a wounded Minister for Defence, and it cannot stand. The real tragedy and atrocity here is that the Australian Defence Force—its men and women—are currently on operations in the Middle East while being led by a bumbling minister. And this is not a minister who has been bumbling for a day, or for hours, but he has been bumbling for 15 months. This is known to those opposite. Over the last 12 months, the Minister for Defence has given 40 speeches and interviews, while the foreign affairs minister has given 200. This is a minister who has been in the witness protection program of the Prime Minister for quite some time. When Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced 600 ADF personnel were to be deployed to the Middle East, he had standing by his side the Chief of the Defence Force. But where was the defence minister? He remained in hiding. And so, as this country sent its people into war, we saw Hugh White, Professor of Strategic Studies at the ANU, make the remark: 'He was incapable of answering the most basic of questions about why we are undertaking this military operation.' For 15 months, we have seen this minister deal with nothing but inaction and failure. You might recall, some short time ago, it took the minister two weeks to respond to claims made about the alleged mistreatment of asylum seekers by Royal Australian Navy sailors. And when he finally emerged, he said, 'I have not said much because, I have to confess, I was extremely angry and I have required some period of time to cool off.' Well, here is a man who lacks the temperament to be the Minister for Defence. Such a man has his finger on the trigger? Be reassured that he does not have his finger on the trigger. The Prime Minister and his colleagues have made sure that in fact this Minister for Defence has very little responsibility at all. At the Australian Strategic Policy Institute submarine conference David Johnston began his contribution by saying, 'I have been told to say this and I have been told not to deviate from my speech.' He is on a very tight leash indeed. Most spectacularly of all, when asked to explain his absence at a meeting of the National Security Committee—a meeting of the NSC held while Australians are at war—he said, 'I didn't have much to add.' At the very beginning of his time as Minister for Defence he found himself overruled by the Prime Minister on the composition of his white paper planning team. It is the most fundamental of responsibilities in his portfolio and one with which he was not trusted. The atrocities continue. We saw retired Major General Molan appear after a mere three weeks of service with the minister, which was all he could take of working with a minister who was in fact responsible for nothing. Major General Molan is a loyal, Liberal advocate—he is seeking Liberal party preselection in New South Wales. Notwithstanding those allegiances, when it came to criticising the minister he said, 'That's a conclusion you can come to. I'll have something to say with others in private.' Clearly he did, because this Minister for Defence remains absolutely in the witness protection program. Broken promises have been a spectacular feature of Senator Johnston's time. He stood at the Australian Submarine Corporation in South Australia on 8 May 2013 and said: We will deliver those submarines from right here at ASC in South Australia. … … … The Coalition today is committed to building 12 new submarines here in Adelaide … That is a promise that has not survived first contact, but it is plain to all of us that it is a promise they should keep or that at the very least they should bring themselves to ensure that there is an open tender for this multibillion dollar, multidecade policy. Senator Johnston came into office as defence minister after intimating to the shipbuilding industry that he would bridge the valley of death by commissioning a fourth air warfare destroyer, another undertaking that did not survive first contact. Then, when talking about rescuing the shipbuilding industry in this country, he commissioned the Winter review. On the basis of that review he has denigrated the industry again and again and again. But what is the most striking feature of the Winter review, Deputy Speaker? No-one knows— The SPEAKER: There is no Deputy Speaker in the chair. Mr FEENEY: Quite right. No-one knows, because this report remains secret. Despite the minister's undertakings to deliver this report to the Australian people, it remains a secret. There we have it, a defence minister who has been in the witness protection program for quite some time, who is not trusted with serious responsibility, who is not allowed to make serious decisions and with whom senior retired personnel from the ADF cannot work. This is a sinking feeling that those opposite are now well acquainted with, a sinking feeling that has been made manifest in the last 24 hours. After his extraordinary remark that he would not trust the ASC to build a canoe—an extraordinary indulgence—we saw the Liberal Party scatter as they sought to distance themselves from this broken reed of a minister. One senior Liberal said, 'Senator Johnston's comments were breathtaking.' We have seen revealed the fact that these comments came just one fortnight after he apologised to the ASC chairman, Bruce Carter, for being critical of the agency's work. That was an apology that did not survive two weeks. We heard another senior Liberal say: This whole process has been undermined by Johnston and his office from the very beginning. Another senior Liberal said in the press today that these 'were some of the most stupid words I have ever heard from a senior minister.' Last night, the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Jamie Briggs, said Senator Johnston's comments were just 'wrong'. In the aftermath of Senator Johnston's extraordinary performance, we saw the Prime Minister himself rush to contradict him, saying, 'I have full confidence in the ASC and its sustainment work for the Royal Australian Navy.' Very rarely do we see a Prime Minister rush to contradict a minister so quickly. Senator Birmingham, a South Australian Liberal Party senator, said: We should be honest about the problems submarines and shipbuilding have faced at Osborne, but that is no excuse for denigration of the workforce or of the extensive capabilities that South Australia has. Perhaps most spectacularly, we have heard today Steven Marshall, the leader of the Liberal Party in South Australia, say: Unless he can rebuild some connection, some rapport, some confidence within the industry, then I don't think he has any alternative (but to resign) … I don't think that his current position is tenable unless he can rebuild that confidence with the sector. This minister's collapse is manifest to all, and with the Australian newspaper making it plain to us today, it seems that soon we will not be able to read the Australian as well as not be able to watch the ABC. We have a defence minister who has gone from lame duck to dead duck. We have a minister who today is plainly on life support. In the last year, ASC has transformed its submarine maintenance program. Again and again it has exceeded the Navy's target for submarine readiness. We have seen improvements in the availability of the Collins class fleet to defend our national interests. This has been done on the back of a reform process that the former Labor government was very proud to have initiated and that even those opposite were forced to concede had done the job and done it well. Notwithstanding that, we have a minister who apparently feels that he can denigrate the industry and the ASC without any regard for the fact that the ASC today, right now, is responsible for sustaining and maintaining our submarine capability. There are literally hundreds of submariners under the oceans of this world who rely on the work of the ASC, and they are told by this debacle of a minister that that organisation could not be trusted to build a canoe. This is an atrocity that cannot stand. To add insult to injury he now says it was a rhetorical flourish. This is a man who does not have the temperament to be the Minister for Defence. This plainly is a man who does not have the judgement to be the Minister for Defence. This is a man who has a record of 15 months of inaction and dithering. The words 'blundering' and 'withering' appear again and again in reference to this minister. Over the course of 12 months we have seen this minister do next to nothing. There has been failure after failure to proceed with the important LAND400 project. Those opposite spout about how important is SEA1000, the Future Submarine project, but 15 months down the track we have nothing. We have a shipbuilding industry that is in crisis because after 15 months this government has yet to achieve anything except send our shipbuilding work overseas, feeding the shipyards of foreign nations without any regard to our own and breaking its own promises and intimations to the industry that there would be work and reform in the industry. Again and again we see this minister relying on the fact that, he says, this industry is not up to the job and relying on a report that remains a secret. (Time expired)