Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Honestly, I thought this motion must have brought forward as a chastisement for the last six years of Labor. I honestly thought that Ms Parke must be one of our class of 2013 that I had not yet met, yet it turns out that this motion was moved by the Labor member for Fremantle. Now, I like the member for Fremantle—and it is a pity she did not hang around to see the motion she cares so much about debated and hear everyone speak on it—but there is a lot more that can be said for her than many on her side. She has principles and is true to her beliefs, but, by jingo, she has stressed her credibility way beyond her means on this motion.

Where the hell were these people for the last six years? What were they saying for the last six years? I understand why they do not hang around. The member for Fremantle was one of those few MPs who did not get a run with a portfolio in defence—god knows how they loved it. Their minister, Stephen Smith, just loved the portfolio. When he was in Afghanistan, he could not even think of one single question for them. In discussions on the Navy, he would lean across to the member for Fadden and say: 'The Navy—those are the guys in white, aren't they? Is that them? Are we talking about the right people? Okay, I'm on it. They look pretty good.'

This motion is a joke and it should be seen as a joke. This motion was brought to the House by a party which made a 10 per cent cut to defence spending in one budget alone. That is the biggest cut to defence since the end of the Korean conflict, a time where defence spending reached 1.56 per cent of GDP. That is the lowest spending to GDP ratio since 1938. Please, have a little credibility—have some pride in yourselves before you come in here. This motion was brought to this chamber by a party which could not deliver, and did not deliver, a single vessel in their six years in government—not a single vessel. This motion was brought to this chamber by a party which did not have a single plan for defence and certainly not for the Navy.

I must correct myself here. They did have a plan. Prime Minister Rudd, without any consultation with anyone—least of all the Navy—announced that he would shift the entire Garden Island facility to Brisbane. The largest dry dock in the southern hemisphere would all be shifted, and it would be done inside six months. It looked like the white Wiggle when he did it, and didn't that go well! Even the people in Brisbane were sitting there rolling their eyes and saying, 'What?' I do not know what was going through the air conditioning on the VIP that he was flying around on, but it was a bit funny.

So the largest dry dock in the Southern Hemisphere would be shut down and a new one built with a budget cut of over 10 per cent in one year, and suddenly he was spruiking spending billions on duplicating facilities—not building new facilities, but duplicating facilities. Of course, just like their Defence Capability Plan and their over-hyped Force 2030, there was never any plan to fund it or do anything other than ferry the then member for Lindsay out from Darwin to look for boats. Labor held Defence in contempt and now just gives lip service to their duplicity in this matter. During their time in government, 119 projects were delayed, 43 were reduced and eight were cancelled altogether. The Australian defence industry shed more than 10 per cent of its workforce because of budget cuts and deferrals. So do not come in here lecturing us on what to do for defence.

What will we do? We have brought forward $78.2 million in Commonwealth funding to assist with the preliminary engineering and design work on the future frigate program. We need to do this just to ensure we can keep this open as an option to build it in Australia. We have undertaken an open competition with Australian industry to construct more than 20 Pacific patrol boats. How many did Labor build during their six years in government? Just let me see. I will add them all up, carry the one, and that would be none—that would be duck egg. And yet they had the temerity to bring this motion into this chamber.

This important project will boost maritime security and fishing protection for us and for our Pacific partner nations in the south-west Pacific. When I was in Tonga it was the single most important thing the minister for defence and fisheries brought up with me. In short, for the Navy we will have a long-term strategic direction—one in which they will be able to have some input, which has been sadly lacking over the last six years. I thank the House.

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