Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Fisher for his question. I thank him also for his leadership of the committee here that deals with defence matters. He's a great supporter of veterans. I saw and met with some of them in Fisher recently. He has a particular passion for making sure that his local defence personnel and veterans are taken care of, and it's a great credit to him.

This government has the same approach. We want to make sure that we can take care of the men and women of the Australian Defence Force. We want to make sure that we can protect our country not only today. Bearing in mind that the decisions we make today and the investments we make today will come to fruition in five or 10 years time, we need to keep an eye on what those threats might be. Similarly, when people have made decisions in the past whether to invest or not to invest, we live with those decisions today.

When Labor were in power, they cut defence spending. They took money away from the defence department. They didn't put money into the Defence Force as was needed. We are now paying a price today because we bear the risk of a capability gap because the Labor Party spent money everywhere but in defence. They took money out of national security.

See this speech in context