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

Thank you to the member for Canning for the question. The last part of his question was: when was the last time a government invested in military capability build-up of this scale? The answer to that is: in the Second World War. World War II was the last time that a government invested on the scale that we are investing today. This is the biggest build-up of our military capability in 70 years: $200 billion over the next 10 years, giving the safety that we need as a nation, protecting our national interest, and using that enormous heft to drive small and medium enterprises, and large primes in defence industry, creating innovation, sophisticated jobs and advanced manufacturing. I am asked by the member for Canning to update the House on the naval shipbuilding plan. I wouldn't use a prop, but I might table a document later in answer to this question. Only last weekend at 3 am in the member for Canning's electorate, Austal launched the first of the Pacific patrol boats, the Guardian class—

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