Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw so I can keep time. They need to apologise for adding $42 billion of spending commitments without adding a single dollar to the IIP or rescheduling other projects or rescoping. That was massively detrimental to the defence industry.

Secondly, they need to commit to matching Labor's commitment of $50 billion. The opposition spokesperson is here. He's been rolled by so many people in the shadow ERC. He went out saying they'd matched Labor's $50 billion commitment. The member for Hume, on Insiders, contradicted that. Senator Jane Hume contradicted that. The opposition spokesperson can't point to a single decision from the shadow cabinet matching our $50 billion. The best I've heard is that he got a text from the opposition leader when he was about to get on a plane. Seriously? That's how you're matching our funding commitments?

So, my challenge to the opposition spokesperson is: demonstrate it by pointing out where you're doing it. The opposition leader couldn't even mention it in his budget reply. The truth is that only Labor is committed to the defence of the nation. Only Labor has allocated sufficient resources to do that job. Only Labor is serious about defence.

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