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

I want to say thank you to the member for Fisher, not just for his leadership on the defence committee and the very valuable role he plays there but also for standing up for veterans on the Sunshine Coast. I've met with veterans with the member for Fisher and he has a deep and abiding passion to make sure that everything that we can do as a country for those veterans is an outcome that we can all be proud of. And he delivers on that, as this government does in terms of national security, providing that safety and security for our country, not just for today but into the coming decades. I want to pay tribute to my counterparts in the United States and the United Kingdom, Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary Ben Wallace, for their support in bringing AUKUS together and their leadership, even today, as we meet as three countries to look at ways in which we can deliver on the agreement we have entered into in the form of AUKUS.

Our Five Eyes compact has absolutely been a very significant underpinning to our national security for many decades. We know now that, as we move into this new phase of great uncertainty in the Indo-Pacific, Australians and people right across the world are worried about what the future holds for the Indo-Pacific. It's important that we not only rebolster the support that we have between the Five Eyes partners in that very important relationship but also that we take our security to the next level as a country and on behalf of our region in the form of AUKUS. AUKUS delivers us a technology which will replace the Collins Class in time, which will be—

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