Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

The minister has taken spinning to a twirling dervish level, can I just say. Minister, despite the eloquent words, there is no escaping $25 billion in cumulative cuts to the Defence budget over the last five years, and there is no escaping cuts as a proportion of GDP, where defence expenditure is at the lowest level since 1938. No level of fiscal means and new budget process can escape that.

I draw your attention, sir, to the white paper and the resultant budget documents that look at the purchase of the 12 EA18G Growlers. The cost of acquiring the Growler, as per the white paper and the budget documents, is $2.974 billion, yet the budget paper makes it very clear that the only allocation of funds for that is $200 million in 2014-15. The budget also makes it expressly clear that the remainder—$2.774 billion—is to be met from within Defence's existing resources, with outlays out to 2012-22. It is page 288, for your staff rapidly searching their documents behind you. Existing resources—that is an absorption, Minister, of $2.774 billion. In your world, absorption is just one of those economic terms. Where I come from, absorption is a cut, because if you have to absorb $2.77 billion then you have to cut something else, because that is the way you absorb something. So, Minister, where will those cuts come from to allow the absorption of $2.774 billion for Growler?

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