Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Minister for Defence. I remind the minister that there are over 3,200 Defence personnel who work in my electorate of Hughes, including the Liverpool Military Area and Holsworthy Barracks. What plans does the government have to address the previous government's Defence cuts?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hughes for his question. He is a member who has argued strongly for the servicemen and women in his electorate. Let me thank you for standing side-by-side with some of your units during some very difficult times during the year.

It is right, Member for Hughes, that you should ask about future plans to address the mess that Labor has left within the Defence budget. Be under no doubt this is an unmitigated mess that we have inherited.

Last week we had the somewhat unedifying spectacle of the departmental secretary coming out to confirm what we have known for five years and what Labor has been in denial about—that they have taken a hatchet to the Defence budget over the last half decade. But not to be outdone, this week alone that great fiscal luminary, the former Labor Defence Minister Stephen Smith is reported as saying that Defence reforms could not be fulfilled because of the over $21 billion that the former Labor government ripped out of the Defence budget. 'Labor lag shoots defence in the foot' is a piece in the Australian that I table. That is an absolute admission of the failures and the mess that that former Labor government left behind.

When you have senior Defence personnel joking that Labor 'simply used the Defence budget is an ATM'—bill after bill after bill pulled out of the ATM—you realise that that is Labor's way. It was always about bill, wasn't it? The lowest level of Defence expenditure since 1938 as a proportion of GDP. That is your bill legacy; or is it simply the legacy of Bill? I am not really sure. But when you pull means of exchange—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, members need to be referred to by their title.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would remind the minister to do that.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was simply referring to the means of exchange which are sometimes grubby, faceless and dirty. But, then again, I apologise. I withdraw, Leader of the Opposition.

Can I say to the member for Hughes that there is a better way. We as a government actually know where the deposit button is on the ATM. All that former government knew was where the withdrawal button was. So what we are going to say, Member for Hughes, and what you can take back to your electorate, is that under this government there will be no cuts to the Defence budget. Under this government we will increase defence as a proportion of GDP to two per cent by 2022, and we will put back the money that that former Labor government recklessly pulled out. Under this government we will actually reinvest any money that is saved from the Defence budget, as opposed to the last government that pulled money out under the Strategic Reform Program and put nothing in. We will take a measured, purposeful and deliberate approach to restoring the finances.