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

He has been extraordinarily honest in terms of his comments.

We all know that the submarine process has at least six months to go. Why does it still have six months to go? Because for six, long, horrid, wintry years, the Labor Party made zero decisions on submarines. Zero decisions were made on our submarine capability—to the point where we are facing a very real capability gap. The Labor Party refused to make a call on the next generation submarine and now demand that we as a government clean up all of their mistakes. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. It is no wonder we were forced to shut down the Leader of the Opposition. Not even his own side could sit quietly and believe what he had to say. It is extraordinary.

Let us look at the other failures of the Labor Party when it comes to defence—because the failure is extraordinary. We saw everything from a white paper that was not funded to defence capability plans that were not approved. We saw everything from Labor saying they would index DFRDB pensions and failing to do so through to reducing our forces to impotence. The Labor Party are especially good at spin, but—

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