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

Putting it all together, I thank the honourable member for his question. I thank him for his passion for this country, for his electorate and for many causes over a long period of time in this chamber. He has worked very hard for people in regional areas, for people in northern Australia and for our country, so I acknowledge that.

The government has, in this budget, made a very significant investment into the top of our country, particularly into Darwin over the next decade. We provide about $8 billion, much of it targeting our Defence Force personnel, including visiting US forces. We make sure that we upgrade the facilities. We provide the additional training facilities that will make it an even more attractive destination for our coalition partners to train from. So, we will bolster our strength in the north and in the west. We obviously have a very significant investment of $270 billion over this decade into the equipment that we will provide to our personnel to keep Australia safe.

We've made decisions over the course of a number of years, not just in this budget, to put us in a position where we can keep our country safe. We have made decisions to secure our borders so that we can defend our country from the scourge of this virus. In this budget, we've provided support to Australians to try and keep them in jobs and to make sure that our economy grows, and we have invested in our Australian Defence Force personnel.

We've also put in significant money, through the minister for energy's recommendations to the Expenditure Review Committee, into fuel security. It is a very important issue for our country. I know the honourable member has had a very significant interest in this issue for a long period of time. But it is more important than ever that we get fuel security right, that we get supply chain surety and that we make sure that, through defence industry, we have the best possible defences against whatever threat might come our way in the years ahead. I'm proud that we have been able to invest in the Defence portfolio in a more significant way than any government in recent history. The cuts to spending on defence during Labor's years, when money went to pay for boat arrivals—but the wrong boat arrivals, people arriving on boats—

See this speech in context