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

I welcome the MPI today, because my city is the embodiment of innovation and education. It is the embodiment of those because we are a forward-looking people, we are positive people and we want to be involved in this space.

Just last week—on Monday—I had the Prime Minister in Townsville. He spoke to kids at Kirwan State High School and we went to Calvary Christian College and also to the Combat Training Centre. The Combat Training Centre is the place where we challenge our soldiers' best. It is where we get them continually to adapt and we get them continually to overcome, and it is where we are never satisfied with the status quo. We look continually for ways to improve performance.

The beauty of moving in this space at the CTC is that it opens the idea of what we do and how private enterprise works with government. There is Cubic, coming in with their laser equipment with which they can track people. They can do all this training stuff there. They can alter the scenarios around which they have to operate and can continually challenge, because your enemy is always challenging.

The ADF is using university education to further make sure that we are getting the best possible officers coming through—making sure that they are the best trained so that we can make sure we have the smartest, most adapted and most agile Defence Force we can possibly have in this space. This is just so hugely important.

Damian Hill is the colonel in command at CTC. I asked him about how to keep it fresh—how to make it fresh. He said that you have to challenge yourself continually. That is what you have to do in innovation and that is what you have to do in education.

The problem we have with those opposite is that they think it can all just be quantified with money. It cannot be just quantified with money; it has to be quantified with attitude. The defence white paper that we have released today is a case in point. This morning there were a number of people walking around this place saying, 'What's in it for my electorate? What's in it for my city?' I see the member for Bendigo sitting over there, saying that if we do not do this there will be all hell to pay, demanding answers and that sort of thing. What is my city doing? My city is looking at the things that came out of the white paper and asking, 'Where are the opportunities for our city?'

I was talking to the head of the computer centre at James Cook University this morning. He said, 'We need to be in this space. How do we get into this space? This is an exciting document; this is an exciting time to be in this space. My university wants to be in this space.' So we are talking to those sorts of guys.

Central Queensland University in my City of Townsville is talking about how they model with VET and how they can make sure that they segue into VET that leads onto diploma and degree courses. They are so hugely important in my area.

When it comes to the defence white paper, we are talking about the Indo-Pacific area of the world. We are moving into making sure that we are helping other nations to develop their capacities. That is what is important here—developing capabilities and being able to be more self-reliant in places like Papua New Guinea and all around the Melanesian world, all the way around to Fiji. They should be able to come through to Townsville, get their training and then go back better educated and as better officers—better people in the PNGDF. For all the armies and all the defence forces in that region to be able to work in that space is hugely exciting.

It is about being in that space and being able to assist people all the way from Indonesia, India, China and Japan to work on innovation and improvement. How do we make the best of those things? That is what my city is doing today and that is what my city should be doing. Too many people here are walking around this place with their begging bowls and saying, 'Give us the money and away we go. That is what we have to do.'

When it comes to defence we must also be very cognisant of what those opposite have always done with defence. Those opposite always speak of the game when it comes to defence but they never actually deliver. Their last budget had defence spending at the lowest percentage of GDP since 1938. Since 1938! They did not alter anything and had two failed white papers. Our white paper is fully funded and fully costed. It is a 20-year plan, with Defence actually on side! We have in our government a Minister for Defence who actually cares about defence. Their last ministers for defence—how many did they have? Nine hundred of them? Not one of them cared about defence.

What we are doing in this space is to make sure that it is innovative, that it is agile and that it is adaptive. We are making sure that education is at the forefront of this debate, because that is where we have to be. It is vitally important in my region to make sure that we are making the best of it—not just in here but all around the Asia-Pacific—making sure that we are pushing forward. (Time expired)

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