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

I want to say thank you very much to the honourable member for her question and for the support that she provides to veterans in her local community.

We know that our nation is facing the most complex and potentially catastrophic regional security environment since the Second World War. The threat now posed by the Chinese government's aggression is a very real, and it's growing. We've seen an unholy alliance between the Chinese government and the Russian government, with President Putin. Both countries have been a very open about that relationship, and that should , I think, cause great concern right across the world, particularly in our own region. We have worked very closely, together, with partners. We have an incredible alliance through our Five Eyes and with our AUKUS partners. Minister Payne is in Melbourne this afternoon to meet with her counterparts in the foreign ministers' Quad. That is a coming together of like-mindeds.

And there are many countries in Europe and elsewhere across North America and around the world who are worried about what is happening in the Indo-Pacific, so this government has invested more into our defences and into keeping our country safe into the future. We did that off an incredibly low base because Labor, when they were last in power, cut funding for defence to the bone. That's the reality. They want to pretend now that somehow there's no difference between the two parties when it comes to defending our nation in the next decade and the decade beyond.

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