Mr HORNE (10:58 AM) —As the member for Paterson, representing the area that contains the Williamtown RAAF base—Australia's biggest Air Force base—I am pleased to support the Defence Legislation Amendment (Application of Criminal Code) Bill 2001. Like the member for Gilmore, I am very proud of the people that I represent who are in our defence forces, because they do a wonderful job. In particular, I think we should take note of the extremely difficult conditions they have experienced over the last five years, because since the Howard government came to power the number of people in our Defence Force has dropped from the 58,000 that this government inherited to 50,000—and the figure was on its way to 42,000 until the defence chief stepped in and said, `That is not a suitable number.'

Now, of course, we are trying to build the number of defence personnel back up, and we are experiencing difficulty. It is no wonder that we are experiencing difficulty, when we have a look at the erosion of conditions for defence personnel that has occurred under this government. Under the coalition, defence personnel now have many of their allowances added to their group certificates for fringe benefits tax purposes, which affects their ability to get allowances such as family payments—

Mr Causley —Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am wondering what this has to do with the bill before the House, which is about the Criminal Code. It seems to me that it is well away from the bill.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hollis)—I am sure the honourable member for Paterson will bring his remarks back to the bill, bearing in mind—not so much with this bill, the debate on which has just started—that all morning there have been fairly wide ranging debates here; I thought that was the essence of this chamber. Could the member for Paterson somehow relate most of his comments to the actual bill?

Mr HORNE —Certainly, Mr Deputy Speaker. Having just listened to the member for Gilmore, I certainly did get the impression that it was a wide ranging debate. But, as the member for Page says, what does this have to do with criminal activity? Many people would consider that the actions of this government in the treatment of the defence forces have been quite criminal.

Mr Bruce Scott —Withdraw that.

Mr HORNE —Do you think that that is unparliamentary, Minister?

Mr Bruce Scott —Yes.

Mr HORNE —I certainly do not, and I can assure you that the people I represent do not. As I was saying, there has been an erosion of conditions. Because of fringe benefits tax, defence personnel now have increasing difficulty in getting access to family payments. There are also HECS debts and superannuation charges. All these sorts of things have had a serious effect on people in our defence forces. Under a new formula devised by the coalition government, defence personnel serving in remote locations have seen the cash amount that they are paid to travel to their leave locations fall. These are all conditions affecting defence personnel, and that is one of the reasons that this government is having extreme difficulty with recruitment and is spending so much money, I dare say, on advertising in an attempt to get people back.

Mr HORNE —I am quite happy to inform the electorate of Paterson on important issues at any time, particularly as this government certainly abrogates its responsibility in that regard. It is obvious that this criticism of the government has hit a raw nerve—and we can go on. The government has been promising much to Australia; the rhetoric has been great, but the delivery has been poor. For example, Minister Scott knows—or perhaps he is not aware of this but his senior minister, the Minister for Defence, would be aware of it—that at present we have only half the number of pilots necessary to fly the FA18s that are housed at Williamtown. We have only half the number of pilots, compared with the number of planes.

When the Prime Minister goes overseas and promises defence support for the United States—as I believe he should; and I believe our defence personnel, when they are called upon, will do honour to this country, as they always have—it is difficult to see where those personnel are going to come from. I would have thought that the majority of our army forces are fully occupied with East Timor. We saw recently that a third of our navy was required to go to Christmas Island to take into their control one fishing boat—and I would think that significant naval reserves are now occupied with the operation that is going on in Nauru—and we find out that we can fly only half our planes because of the low number of pilots that we have. There is no doubt that under this government the conditions for the defence forces, and the number of defence personnel, have seriously declined. It does need to be addressed. I will conclude my remarks now because I know that the minister has taken it on board. I thank the House.