Ms JULIE BISHOP (3:15 PM) —My question is to the Minister for Defence. How many serving SAS soldiers stationed at Campbell Barracks in my electorate of Curtin have been hit with debt repayment notices regarding their salaries and how many thousands of dollars have they been forced to repay?

Mr FITZGIBBON (Minister for Defence) —The reality is that Defence cannot give me those numbers—

Opposition members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! I remind honourable members that the Minister for Defence has the call.

Mr FITZGIBBON —so farcical—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop —Can I hand you a shovel?

The SPEAKER —The member for Mackellar will leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).

The member for Mackellar then left the chamber.

Mr FITZGIBBON —so farcical is the state of the systems we have inherited. This is a question—

Ms Julie Bishop —On a point of order, if this minister does not know how many soldiers—

The SPEAKER —Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat—

Ms Julie Bishop —are being expected to—

The SPEAKER —The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).

The member for Curtin then left the chamber.

Opposition members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The House will come to order. I am reliably informed that the minister is 20 seconds into his answer. Minister.

Mr FITZGIBBON —Those issues go to a range of problems, including ICT problems and the inflexibility and lack of capacity of those systems and, of course, the informal process which was granting special forces soldiers competencies without a formal course. That is just a fact. I reaffirm my commitment to ensure that nobody wrapped up in the processes of the implementation of the defence force review tribunal’s determination will be adversely affected by this series of events.

I should say this: the opposition needs to be very careful here. There are a number of people who regularly incur overpayments and therefore debts. Some of them originally were wrapped up in the review tribunal’s determinations. They are no longer affected, because I have suspended that recovery process and they will be fixed. Others have debts for other reasons, and the opposition needs to be very careful to differentiate between those two or three or four or five different sets of people. My recommendation to the opposition is to stop playing politics with our special forces soldiers.