PUP senator Jacqui Lambie calls for royal commission into Department of Veterans Affairs, military leadership

Updated

Palmer United Party senator Jacqui Lambie has called for a royal commission into the Defence Force and the Department of Veterans Affairs over what she calls a "cover-up of appallingly high levels of abuse".

Senator Lambie, making her maiden speech to the Senate in Canberra, said a national inquiry was needed to shed light on abuse and sexual assaults in the military, as well as the high suicide rate and a shortage of staffing and resources.

"I am appalled and disgusted and I demand an independent judicial inquiry into this matter immediately," she said.

She told the story of Marcus Saltmarsh, a veteran of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, who was exonerated by a military court after the accidental shooting death of a fellow soldier, Corporal Stuart Jones, in East Timor in 2000.

Senator Lambie said Mr Saltmarsh, who was in the public gallery for the address, was mistreated by department officials and that a "complete failure of leadership" meant he was never publicly cleared over the incident.

She said the finding exonerating Mr Saltmarsh was not distributed publicly but that earlier "adverse recommendations" were leaked, damaging Mr Saltmarsh's "personal reputation and psychological wellbeing".

He was made a "scapegoat" by the military, she said, in order to draw attention away from faulty rifles, believed to be a factor in the accidental death.

"I want to thank him for his service," Senator Lambie said.

"And because this Government and Prime Minister — despite repeated written requests from myself — refuses to apologise for the appalling abuse Marcus has suffered, I'd like to apologise as a senator from Tasmania – his home state – for the incredible abuse and/or incompetence he's been forced to endure by certain leaders of our military.

"Mr Saltmarsh says this abuse could have been avoided if he had been able to be publicly exonerated."

She also said it was "appalling" that photos from Corporal Jones's autopsy were delivered to Mr Saltmarsh, six years after he was exonerated, despite his asking they not be sent.

"The key question for this inquiry is this: was it sheer incompetence that caused these photos to be sent to Mr Marcus Saltmarsh, or was it a deliberate, abusive act?"

Transport disadvantage a 'stinky, filthy injustice'

Senator Lambie also drew attention to what she called the "outrageous, stinky, filthy injustice" of high transport costs between Tasmania and the mainland, which she said was a major factor in the state's economic disadvantage.

"If we are to be treated fairly as a state, the cost of people taking their cars, motor homes, campervans, caravans, motorbikes, grey hounds, race horses or unicorns from Devonport to Melbourne or vice versa should be no more than the cost of driving the 327 kilometres of national highway from Melbourne to Albury," she said.

"If the powers that control the Treasury benches in this place don't want an army of Jacqui Lambies in this place speaking uncomfortable truths and challenging them in the future, then fix the Bass Strait transport cost crisis," she said.

"The distance and cost of surface travel between Tasmania and the Australian mainland is a national disgrace, not a national highway. It's time to fix it."

Senator Lambie wants an extra $200 million a year spent on the freight equalisation scheme and blamed other Tasmanian Senators for not dealing with the issue.

"Especially those who have been in power, or are in power now, have chosen to do nothing," she said.

Tasmanian Senator Anne Urquart hit back, saying Labor had worked to improve the scheme and it was not as simple as throwing money at it.

"That may be a bit of naivety on behalf of Senator Lambie who has only just come into the Senate in recent months," she said.

Topics: federal-parliament, government-and-politics, australia, tas

First posted