Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I again thank the member for Ryan for her question and her interest. In 2015-16 the coalition will be investing $7.2 billion in defence equipment. This nearly doubles the amount that Labor spent in their disastrous 2012-13 budget, which, as I said earlier, cut our defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP to the lowest level since 1938.

The honourable member mentions the C17 Globemaster transport aircraft. These are truly phenomenal aircraft. Anybody who has seen one will have seen the sheer size of them. Anybody who has had the privilege of flying in one will understand the capability of these aircraft. I had the privilege of flying in one in January from the UAE to Baghdad, when the Prime Minister and I went to visit the troops in Baghdad. The manoeuvrability of this aircraft, for such a large aircraft, is truly amazing. The storage capacity in the back of it means it can carry very heavy equipment, helicopters, personnel and, as you said, medical stations et cetera. This truly gives us versatility as far as our ability to reach out around the world goes.

There are a number of examples of the aircraft not just going to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. When we had the MH17 disaster in Ukraine, we were able to get the C17 there very quickly. When humanitarian disasters occur in places within our region, the C17 can go to them. It went, as I said earlier, to Nepal. It took relief stores to Nepal and then it was able to evacuate people from that earthquake area zone.

A decision we made recently was to purchase two more of the C17. The reality is that the production of C17s is coming to an end. This was our last opportunity to increase our number of C17s. We decided to purchase two more. That will take our overall fleet of these C17 aircraft to eight. They will have a long lifetime. Probably three or four decades into the future those C17s will still be operating as part of our Defence Force and will still be at that stage, I am sure, some of the most capable aeroplanes in the RAAF. They are based at RAAF Amberley in Queensland. They are the backbone of the various efforts that I have referred to this evening.

In addition to that, we are funding new state-of-the-art special forces vehicles that are being assembled in Australia to give enhanced capability to our most elite troops. We have put out a request for tender for LAND 400, which is the program to provide the new combat reconnaissance vehicles to the Army and replace the ageing fleet of ASLAVs. We have spent $78 million to bring forward the preliminary engineering design work for the future frigate project. We are truly getting on with the job. Of course, we have the competitive evaluation process underway at the present time for the future submarines to replace the Collins class submarines.

Again, decisions should have been made in relation to these in the past. They were not made. That has potentially compromised our Defence capability and therefore our national security in the future. These are long-range projects. The decision taken in the next year or so about frigates and submarines will see the first of those boats delivered in the 2020s. In the case of submarines, it will probably not be until the mid-2020s and so that involved some extension of the life of the Collins class submarines in order to ensure that we have that capability in the future. As I said, the government is getting on with the job. That means ensuring that we have not just the best professional Defence personnel anywhere in the world but also the assets and the capability for them to be able to do their job.

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