Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There you have it! Getting lessons from Labor on ministerial accountability is a bit like getting lesson on ethics from Eddie Obeid, or lessons from Stephen Smith about how to treat ADFA commandants, or lessons from Stephen Conroy on how to treat Lieutenant-Generals in Senate estimates, or lessons from Kevin Rudd on team building perhaps. So thank you for those lessons.

What this MPI reveals is that Labor remains in a miasma of denial. They are damned by their own record of the most appalling dysfunction during six years of Labor and Labor-Greens government—and not just dysfunction but destruction of the Defence portfolio.

We heard the member for Fadden talk about 16 reshuffles. Labor had three defence ministers during their six years. I know that, because I worked to all three of them. We had the member for Hunter, who did not serve his turn; he left after admitting he did not comply with the ministerial code of conduct. We had Senator Faulkner, who left 12 months later—very soon after Kevin Rudd had been politically knifed by the current Leader of the Opposition. We had Stephen Smith, who spent most of his tenure manning the ATM, scratching the fiscal itch; whenever Penny Wong and Wayne Swan called for it he would ring up the Defence ATM and hand over the dollars—$16 billion of defence funding. So when you come into this place and you talk about ministerial accountability, pause for a moment and reflect on your record.

I remember the member for Hunter and the Cessnock conference—the grand bargain between Defence and the Labor government of the day. It was reliant on government providing real increases in the defence budget of three per cent between 2009 and 2017-18; 2.2 per cent beyond 2017-18 to 2030—and they said they would give them a deal on indexation. Then they said to Defence: 'Your part of this grand bargain is to come up with $20 billion of internal savings'—about eight to 10 per cent of their budget, year on year. Yet here they are complaining about 4.4 per cent from the ABC, and they impose 10 per cent on Defence, year on year, for a decade.

But the combined effects of those two things—government investment in defence and the $20 billion in savings—was meant to deliver something called Force 2030—do you remember that? It was 12 submarines the famous Rudd-pluck of 12 submarines, determined on the back of the same envelope that the NBN plan was written on. It is little wonder that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has referred to the defence budget under that mob as an unsustainable mess.

I listened with incredulity earlier today when the Leader of the Opposition had the temerity to come into this place and talk about submarines. In six years they failed to progress SEA 1000; six years, and not even first pass approval; no contracts or key milestones achieved; no meaningful work at all.

Ms Butler interjecting—

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