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

I thank the honourable member for her question and greatly appreciate her support of our Defence Force personnel. Every Australian would be proud of the work that is about to get underway in Exercise Talisman Sabre, predominantly in Queensland, where we'll see 1,800 troops travel to our country for the exercise, not only from the United States but also from Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This will be a very significant effort, for us to work very closely with our partners. This government has put $270 billion into defence capability over this decade, and we know that Labor withdrew $18 billion from the Defence Force when they were last in government because they lost control of their borders and they needed to put that money into that policy failure.

I'm asked about alternative policies. As the Australian public knows of this Leader of the Opposition, right through the course of the way in which we have responded to the COVID pandemic—and I'm asked about the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic—this individual, this Leader of the Opposition, has sought to undermine our standing as a country from day one when it comes to the vaccine rollout—

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