Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier today I was talking about the border security allocation in the appropriation bills. I was noting that we are stopping the boats, with no illegal arrivals by boat since 19 December last year. That is 70 days. We have also closed four detention centres, saving over $80 million. However, there is a lot more to do, as evidenced by the allocation for border protection contained in these bills.

The fourth significant allocation in the bills before the House is for just over $540 million for the Department of Defence for overseas operations. It is to supplement foreign exchange movements and is for the reappropriation of amounts between the appropriation acts aligning with Defence's current work programs.

This allocation reminds us of the fourth policy failure of the former government. It is like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the fourth failure being in the area of defence. This must be sheeted home to the various ministers for defence, both cabinet and junior ministers, in the previous government. That group includes former cabinet members—the member for Hunter; Senator John Faulkner; the former member for Perth, Stephen Smith; and the junior ministers from the New South Wales Right—the member for Blaxland and my old nemesis in Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly—and their left-wing mates, Greg Combet, Senator Kim Carr and the member for Lingiari. None of them can escape blame for the more than $25 billion that was ripped out of defence in the course of the last six years.

As a former chief of staff for the Minister for Defence I have been appalled by the mismanagement over recent years. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government showed an utter disregard for the service of the men and women of the Australian Defence Force. This has placed Australia's national security at risk not just now but over the long term. In fact, the Labor government cut almost $30 billion out of Defence investment through broken promises, deferments, delays and cancellations. Defence spending in 2012-13 alone was cut by 10.5 per cent to help plug Labor's budget black hole. This was the largest annual reduction since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The share of GDP spent on defence in the 2013-14 budget is just 1.59 per cent, the lowest level since 1938.

The coalition will restore spending on defence. There will be no further cuts to overall defence spending under a coalition government. As the Commonwealth's budgetary position improves, we will restore the real growth in defence investment that marked the final seven years of the Howard government and whose continuation was promised in Labor's 2009 defence white paper but not delivered by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. So in defence we are also repairing Labor's mess.

In conclusion, what is one of the lessons we can reasonably reach after this little exploration in recent history? It is not that it was about Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard that they lost the last election. It was the collective failure of the Labor Party. It was the frontbenchers' collective failure on their policies overall. That is what they need to fix. And that is what we are trying to fix to strengthen— (Time expired)

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