Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. What failures over the last decade have led to defence capability gaps, and what is the Albanese Labor government's plan to address them?

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Australia faces capability gaps in our defence because of the complete incompetence of the former coalition government, and it was all based on the way in which they govern themselves. They had six—almost seven—defence ministers in the course of nine years. It started with David Johnston who had served just over a year when, as the champion of Australian defence industry, he announced to the world that he wouldn't trust the defence industry of our country to build a canoe. Then we had Kevin Andrews who went off and pursued a submarine deal with Japan which, in turn, became a subject of the 'empty chair' challenge on Tony Abbott. Kevin Andrews lost his job as defence minister when Tony Abbott lost his job as the Prime Minister. And then we had Senator Payne, and everything stopped. Literally, nothing happened. After the 2016 election, Christopher Pyne was brought in to be the human defibrillator machine to shock coalition defence policy back into life. But then we had two defence ministers at the same time, and no-one had any idea who was responsible for what. That was never going to last, so Christopher took over the entire show until he got sick of it in 2019. Then we had Senator Payne. Then we had the current leader of the opposition.

Over the course of nine years, there were 24 different ministers across the breadth of the Defence portfolio. Is it any wonder that the result of that was absolute chaos? There were 28 different projects running a combined total of 97 years over time. The only things that moved in the last decade were defence ministers, because everything else came to a grinding halt. But you don't need to take my word for it, because last week we had an outbreak of honesty from the shadow minister, the member for Canning, when he said:

… we also squandered a lot of opportunity through the leadership changes. It created ministerial churn—

that's one description of it—

which led to inertia …

Well, he got that right, because that inertia described the single worst national security government in our country's history.

Now, over the last few months the Albanese Labor government has established the Defence Strategic Review—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Resources will cease interjecting.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

the single most expansive overview of defence in more than 35 years, so that, in the context of a growing defence budget, we can have the capabilities that we need to meet a very different world, and we're going to actively manage programs to meet that need—

Government members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Resources will cease interjecting.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

because the Albanese Labor government is absolutely committed to getting defence back on track and keeping Australians safe.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is far too much noise on my right when ministers are addressing the House.

Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Including from the Minister for Indigenous Australians.