Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fisher for his question. Today and last night I had the opportunity to meet with the UK Secretary of Defence, Gavin Williamson. Our defence industry relationship with the United Kingdom has improved markedly in the last couple of years. We've initiated the Australia/United Kingdom Defence Industry Dialogue for the first time. I had the first couple of meetings, and it will meet for a third time in the first half of this year.

There are real opportunities for Australian businesses to export their defence platforms into the United Kingdom. There are a few examples that are well known to members, such as: the Thales Australia's Bushmaster, which is currently bidding for a tender into the UK but has been purchased by the UK before—in the member for Bendigo's electorate; or CEA's phased array radar, produced here in Canberra, which is being evaluated for the United Kingdom's type 31E platform for frigates; or BAE and the Defence Science and Technology Group's Nulka, an anti-ship missile decoy which has passed a billion dollars worth of value for exports from Australia around the world. There are smaller companies, too. In fact, in the member for Fisher's electorate, Praesidium Global is currently trying to break into the UK market with an unmanned ground vehicle for Defence personnel out in the field.

The Defence Export Strategy that the Prime Minister and I launched in January is just one of the ways that we are assisting Australian businesses trying to break into the defence exports market. Another one, of course, is the reduction of the company tax rate. It is a very important economic measure that will drive jobs, higher wages, investment and growth in the economy. It wasn't so long ago that the Leader of the Opposition was, in fact, in favour of company tax cuts. In 2011, he was the Assistant Treasurer in the Gillard government. In March 2011 he gave a speech to ACOSS's national conference. In it, he said:

… lowering the corporate rate for smaller businesses only (as the Greens propose)—

so that was when he wanted to have different policies to the Greens, as opposed to now—

creates an artificial incentive for someone to downsize.

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