Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

THISTLETHWAITE (—) (): I want to, firstly, pay tribute to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force and let them know that every member of the Albanese government highly values and respects the role they play in defending our nation.

Australia faces some of the most challenging strategic circumstances since World War II. The government takes that threat very seriously. We're acting to ensure the Australian Defence Force has the capability and the personnel to ensure the security and wellbeing of all Australians. That's what the Australian people expect of their government, and that is what the Albanese government is delivering. That's why we've commissioned the Defence Strategic Review and the nuclear submarine taskforce, to advise government about delivering the necessary defence capability to defend our nation as quickly as possible and in a fiscally responsible manner. Just as Labor supported the then government, in opposition, when they announced AUKUS, we hope the opposition will support the Albanese government in making the necessary defence investments into the future to give the ADF the capability it needs to defend Australia into the future.

When it comes to national security and defence, the Australian people expect unity and cooperation from this parliament. It's a shame that, through this MPI, the opposition appears more interested in politics than in that unity and cooperation on national security. They're well and truly stuck in the past, if you have a look at the motion. They're talking about something that happened close to 20 years ago, yet they want to forget what happened over the last decade under their watch. They're playing politics, and the claims in the motion are simply untrue. They want to ignore the last decade of defence debacles under their government. Under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, not only did we have seven defence ministers in the nine years they were in government; the result was 28 different defence projects running a cumulative total of 97 years over time. It's the coalition century of chaos, and it resulted in some of these projects reducing the capability of the Defence Force.

You don't have to believe me when I make these claims; we need only look at what the opposition defence spokesperson said himself on 31 October: 'Yes, we squandered a lot of opportunity through leadership changes. It created ministerial churn, which led to inertia institutionally, and I think it meant we delayed a lot of these decisions. Defence had too many ministers over a nine-year period. It's been a criticism, and I think it's a valid one.' Well, you got that right, champion—for sure you sure got that right! But it was not just you.

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