Stephen Conroy accuses Angus Campbell of political cover-up over Operation Sovereign Borders during fiery Senate Estimates

Updated

The military commander in charge of the Government's asylum seeker boats mission has been accused of a "political cover-up" by Labor's defence spokesman.

Senator Stephen Conroy made the controversial comment - which he was later forced to withdraw - in a heated exchange in a Senate Estimates committee looking into Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB).

OSB Commander Lieutenant General Angus Campbell was asked to explain why he had placed strict controls on information about "operational" or "on-water" incidents.

Senator Conroy compared the level of secrecy with that surrounding SAS activities behind enemy lines during the 2003 war in Iraq.

"I can absolutely understand the need for operational secrecy when you have troops operating behind enemy lines blowing up airfields and scud missiles," he said.

"But what I'm intrigued by is your view that stopping a number of wooden boats with unarmed people on has the same level of secrecy requirement."

Lt Gen Campbell repeated his decision was based on "dealing with avoiding advantage to people smugglers, manipulation of potential clientele of people smugglers, the safety of our people and the management of regional and bilateral relationships and their sensitivities".

Senator Conroy then referenced a quote from the movie A Few Good Men, asking General Campbell: "Can't we handle the truth?"

He referred to Lt Gen Campbell as the character in the movie, Colonel Jessup, who utters the line: "You can't handle the truth."

"I mean seriously. You can't tell us the truth," Senator Conroy continued.

"You can't tell the Australian public the truth because you might upset an international neighbour.

"That's called a political cover-up. That's a political cover-up. You're engaged in a political cover-up."

Committee chairman and Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald said Senator Conroy was bullying a witness and asked him to apologise.

He refused and Lt Gen Campbell responded.

"I just would like to put on the public record I take extreme offence at that statement you've made," the military commander said.

To accuse someone of being an actor in a movie - Colonel Jessup was the expression used - to accuse him of a political cover-up in the way that he did, that is just completely wrong and unacceptable. Defence Minister David Johnston

In the ensuing debate, Senator Conroy interjected that he was just trying to "call a spade a spade" and said "we're not at war, are we?"

The committee was suspended for some minutes and when it resumed Senator Conroy withdrew the accusation.

Defence Minister David Johnston has defended Lt Gen Campbell and called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to "discipline" the Labor frontbencher.

"To accuse someone of being an actor in a movie - Colonel Jessup was the expression used - to accuse him of a political cover-up in the way that he did, that is just completely wrong and unacceptable," he said.

"Bill Shorten chose him, Bill Shorten should deal with him, Bill Shorten should discipline him. Bill Shorten should ensure that he apologises to General Campbell."

Mr Shorten's office said it had "noted Senator Conroy withdrew" the accusation.

In a statement, Senator Conroy said on Tuesday evening it was the Government who should be apologising for placing the military in a highly partisan position.

Hearing told Customs spent $2.5m on lifeboats

Senator Conroy's angry charge came after hours of questions directed to the chiefs of Immigration, Customs and Lt Gen Campbell.

The Federal Opposition and Greens have previously criticised the lack of information given to Senate Estimates hearings.

Earlier, the committee was told that Customs had spent $2.5 million on lifeboats to be used during Operation Sovereign Borders activities.

The ABC has been told another orange lifeboat carrying asylum seekers arrived on the Indonesian coast after being sent back by Australian authorities.

But Australian authorities have not confirmed the information, with a spokeswoman for the Government saying it was policy to not comment on operational matters.

In the Estimates committee, the chief executive officer of the Customs department, Michael Pezzullo, would not reveal how many lifeboats have been purchased.

"Any disclosure of how we employ them, which includes the numbers that we have, how many that we have in stock, how many that are available on a monthly basis and the like starts getting into their operational employment," he said.

"That starts to unveil our concept for using them operationally."

Officials would also not reveal what plans were in place to retrieve the life boats from Indonesian shores and Mr Pezzullo rejected the description of them as "disposable".

"From an accounting point of view, the assets - the vessels or the lifeboats - are consumables - the sort of consumables that you'd have on the execution of any sort of operation," he said.

"They're consumables in the same way that we would consume or go through stores of any kind of any nature in conducting operations.

"They are not assets that are required to be counted as assets in the inventory of the Commonwealth, they are consumable stores."

Mr Pezzullo said Customs would buy as many as were required to make the mission a success.

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Topics: federal-government, refugees, immigration, community-and-society, government-and-politics, federal-parliament, australia

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