Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

When the government rose to introduce the budget last year they started with the line, 'Tonight we introduce four years of surpluses.' What has happened is that we have had the five biggest deficits in the history of the Commonwealth. We have had more than 20,000 new regulations. We have had the carbon tax and we have had the mining tax and we have had a fall in investment in this country.

Given the pitiful performance of the government in the economy, nothing has been worse than your performance on national security. You have failed to protect our borders. More than 43,000 people have come to this country in an unauthorised manner and we have had a failure to protect Australia's national borders. Moreover, we have had a failure to protect the Defence Force of this country, to maintain defence spending at the number it should be of around two per cent of GDP.

Australia's defence spending has fallen to the lowest level since 1938—1.56 per cent of GDP. Shame on you, Labor Party. Shame on you. If you go round the region, every country is spending more on defence. Singapore spends more than 3½ per cent of GDP on defence. In India it is more than two per cent. The Americans spend 4.7 per cent. What are we in Australia spending? It is 1.56 per cent. Shame on you, Labor Party. Shame on you for failing for to protect our borders, for spending less on defence and for ruining the Australian economy.

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