Government plans for Defence oversight committee dealt critical blow

Despite all parties indicating their support for the body, the membership of the committee was an intractable sticking point.

It is a significant blow for the Albanese government as it is the first piece of government legislation to be scuppered since it came to power in the 2022 election.

The proposed Joint Committee on Defence would be similar to the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which gives parliamentary review of Australia's security and intelligence services.

A similar, standalone body does not exist for the Defence forces.

During a heated debate in the lower house, opposition defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie put forward amendments to the bill which would only allow the government and opposition members on the committee.

"We cannot risk the Greens becoming members of the joint defence committee," Mr Hastie said.

"Such people are not fit to govern, nor are they fit to serve on this joint defence committee."

These amendments were voted down and the bill sent to the Senate, where Greens Defence spokesperson David Shoebridge returned fire, referring to Labor and the Coalition as the "defence club of the war parties" that had created a "disaster" of defence procurement.

"Labor and the Coalition just sign off on whatever nonsense Defence puts in front of them."

In the upper house, the opposition circulated a similar set of amendments to those put forward by Mr Hastie in the lower house, while the Greens sought to amend the bill to require a member not part of the major parties from each house.

Both amendments were defeated, before the Coalition and the Greens, along with the rest of the cross bench, voted against the bill as a whole, delivering a blow to the government's efforts to have the committee established.

Mr Hastie had previously said the committee should be established "at speed", given the government's plan to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the AUKUS deal, as well as other major defence procurement projects. The committee had also been a legislative priority for Defence Minister Richard Marles, who had called for the group to be set up "as soon as practicable".