Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

We are living in dangerous times and this government is weak on national security. It's true that weakness is provocative, and we can't afford to be weak as a country, which is why we have brought this MPI on today. We know that authoritarian powers are on the move. We saw China and Russia sign a no-limits partnership in February 2022, signalling deep cooperation. Since then we have seen Russia invade Ukraine, we have seen the PRC launch provocations in the Taiwan Strait, we saw Hamas attack Israel last October, and now we have Houthi rebels backed by Iran attacking global trade and shipping in the Red Sea.

We are facing strategic disorder that we haven't seen in our lifetime, and it has consequences. Consider the cost of these attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Before Christmas, the cost of moving a 40-foot shipping container from Europe to the Far East was less than $2,000. Today it's around 4½ thousand dollars. Now is the time for this government to act, because those costs will be passed on to Australian consumers. But this government is failing to secure Australia, because they are weak. It's very simple: they are weak. The Prime Minister is weak. The defence minister is weak. And when your political leadership signals weakness to the world, the risks go up. People stop taking you seriously. They push you around. They eat your lunch. They conduct sonar attacks on your divers.

It's not good enough. The Australian people deserve more from this Albanese government. Weakness is manifest in their lack of commitment to defence spending. It's manifest in their cuts to capability. It's manifest in the chaos and dysfunction that we saw last week between the defence minister and his department. It's manifest in the deferral of tough decisions. We won't see a defence strategy until mid this year, and our uniformed personnel are taking note. We're seeing more and more defence members leave the Defence Force, and this government is failing to recruit new members into the Defence Force.

Last year the Minister for Defence, to great fanfare, launched the Defence Strategic Review. He did it on the eve of Anzac Day—the old magician's trick—when the media was having a break and no-one was really watching. All the DSR revealed was that this government is not serious about protecting the Australian people. There was no new money for defence—no new money at all—and we've seen inflation eating into the purchasing power of every defence dollar in the budget.

What happened here was that the Minister for Defence, at the ERC, lost to the foreign minister, Senator Penny Wong. He lost. He couldn't win a fight there. So the question is: if he can't win a fight at a cabinet table, how can he win the next war if called upon? It's a good question to ask. He is fundamentally weak.

This lack of money has led to cuts to capability. We've seen the Army gutted. The new armoured vehicles have gone from an order of 450 to 129. We've seen the collapse of three brigades to one. We're moving all our Defence Force north, and of course that has consequences for retention and recruitment. All we saw from the DSR was pantomime and weakness, and it's not good enough. We now have questions now about the boxer program, a big deal landed with the German government, and it's just not good enough. In fact, just this week, we saw that the Australian National Audit Office has reviewed defence major projects and showed that, under the Albanese government, our most significant defence projects are running late by 37 years. This is just a consequence of weakness.

We also see weakness manifest in the minister's deferrals and delays. He won't take a hard decision. Last week, Andrew Tillett in the Australian Financial Review revealed the pile of paperwork in the defence minister's in-tray—submissions waiting for action. In fact, we know that the Minister for Defence, even before these laws are passed, is exercising his right to disconnect from the very job that he's called upon to perform. We expect our diggers, sailors and airmen to have a bias for action. Well, the defence minister can start leading with a bias for action and taking some of these decisions. How about a defence strategy from this government? How about the surface fleet review being handed down? How about a decision on that going forward? It's not good enough. This government is weak, and we're seeing that in the deferral of tough decisions.

We're also seeing weak leadership in the chaos and dysfunction at the heart of this defence ministry. Last week, we asked the question: why is the defence minister blaming his own department? It was in October of 2022 that the defence minister stood up and said: 'The buck stops with me. I take responsibility.'

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