Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for his cogent questions and acknowledge his great interest in over 32 years of service. As someone who finished as the head of IP division and a FAS in the department, he is someone who knows a thing or two about budgets and how Defence works. One of the reasons we produced The little book of Labor's Defence backflips was to ensure that the truth and the facts would always be cogent. It is interesting to see, over the years, in the Defence budget what our commentariat said.

Ross Babbage said there was 'Little security in Defence budget'. Brendan Nicholson said, 'Cuts prove fatal to Defence plans'. Greg Sheridan: 'Our forces reduced to impotence'. David Wroe, in the Sydney Morning Herald: '$33b shortfall in military purchases'. The headlines in the Financial Review were, 'No excuse for mess of Defence policy'. And Cameron Stewart's headline was 'Defence white paper goes down in flames'. John Kerin has said that defence cuts were a threat to the US alliance. And on and on it goes. It is a woeful story unpacked by the nation's defence journalists. It is a story of a defence budget handed over, in 2007 at the time of the Howard government loss, in fine working order. It is a defence force that was committed in combat operations and had learned lessons from the previous deleterious effects of Labor governments leading into East Timor in 1999.

The Defence Force in 2007 was left with a legacy. You know you go to war with the gear you have, and in 1999 we did not have the gear we needed. And the coalition vowed that that would not happen again. The problem we face now is that we do not have the gear we need. The grand bargain of Labor providing three per cent real increase in the Defence budget 2017-18 and then a modicum less than that to the out years to deliver Force 2030 was not delivered—it was not followed through.

The bargain was broken in a horrendous fashion. The budget was driven down to 1938 levels in GDP terms. Almost 120 projects were delayed, pushed to the never-never or got rid of. That is the situation as a statement of fact. That was the level of debilitating impact that we had in the defence budget. That is what we have to deal with; $25 billion was taken out and it will take 10 years to get that money back. This budget is a good start—over $29 billion. We have taken the spend as a proportion of GDP back to 1.8 per cent from where it was at 1.56 per cent.

I never saw the member for Batman out there saying, 'What the Labor government has done is dreadful.' I never saw that. I never saw Senator Conroy, the current shadow defence minister out there saying, 'This is dreadful.' I never saw that. Silence is acquiescence. We can naturally assume from the silence from the member for Batman, from Senator Conroy, from the other shadow team and from the member for Canberra, Ms Brodtmann, that they agree with defence being used as an ATM, with money being ripped out.

The hilarious thing was that Minister Smith would often say, 'There is no impact on capabilities.' Forty-six per cent of all projects—future capability and future force structure—were delayed, deferred or cut but, 'There's nothing to see here! There's no impact on capability.' It is simply and utterly laughable.

We will start the hard yards of getting it back in order. This budget has started that process. The Defence white paper that we will deliver next year will be ruthlessly costed and ruthlessly budgeted. For what we say we can afford, you will be able to see where the money is coming from. You cannot speak strategy without speaking dollars and cents. The problem with the last Labor government is that they would speak grand strategy—grand moving hands—but they could not back it up. They refused to back it up with dollars and cents.

The last budget of Labor gave capability from 9.00 am to 12.00 pm—three hours—to rip a billion dollars out of the budget so that their forward estimates would have a surplus. They gave defence three hours to bill $1 billion out so that their budget would have a surplus. Five hundred times the Prime Minister and the Treasurer said that a surplus would be delivered, but what were we left with? A $51 billion deficit. That is the legacy of Labor.

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