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

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. How will the Albanese Labor government fix the failure of the former government to provide accurate, reliable and transparent information when it came to defence spending and key projects?

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

I thank the member for his question. Today, the parliament is focused on transparency. Although, to be honest, transparency ought to be a foundational ethic in all that we do every day. The member for Cook's defence of his actions—that he would have told the truth if anyone had actually asked him—obviously treats every member of this house, and particularly his own colleagues, with complete contempt. The idea—

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order: it was a question about defence. On the most charitable view of this question, he is well outside the scope of it, and he ought to be directed back to the question.

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

I agree with the Manager of Opposition Business.

The member for Braddon and the member for Lindsay are not helping the situation. The question was about defence spending on key projects in comparison to the previous government.

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

The idea that the failure of transparency in the former Liberal government was solely confined to the member for Cook would be completely wrong because it was an abiding culture of all of them. It belonged to every one of them, and it most certainly applied in defence.

Today we learned, through the ANAO's report on Defence's administration of the Integrated Investment Program under the former coalition government, that when those opposite were advised that the Attack class submarine program would cost $78 billion, the number they provided to the public was $50 billion. The ANAO report makes it clear that, when those opposite were advised that the Hunter class frigate program would cost $36 billion, the number they provided to the public was $30 billion.

To be clear, that is not a failure of transparency. That is straight-out misinformation on a grand scale. That is the equivalent of trying to hide the entire state budget of Western Australia. The reason they did this is that those opposite were unable to deal with the hard questions about those costs, because to do so would have been to actually engage in defence policy, and those opposite are never interested in doing that. They're just completely obsessed with the politics of defence. It's this behaviour which has left our government inheriting 28 different programs, running a combined 97 years over time. In our history, there has never been an administration as with the former Liberal government which has treated Australia's defence with such contempt.

The Albanese government is different. We are introducing an independent program office. When programs go wrong, we are going to have objective criteria by which they are put on the 'projects of interest/projects of concern' list, and then there will be monthly reports to ministers so we can get those back on track. But all of that pales into insignificance—

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

The member for Herbert is warned.

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

compared to the fact that we will be transparent with defence spending and the challenges which face our country, because we understand that it is transparency which drives value for money when it comes to defence spending in this country.