Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking to ensure Defence is appropriately resourced, and why is this required after a wasted decade?

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

The member for Barker is warned and is not to interject anymore during question time, particularly during questions. I can't be clearer than that.

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

I thank the member for her question. Today, Australia is spending two per cent of its GDP on defence. Splashing dollars around is easy, but translating that spend into a potent and a lethal capability for our nation is actually hard. It requires strategic planning, backed up by difficult decisions, which is why the government undertook the Defence Strategic Review and has followed through with real action, like restructuring the Army or funding the guided weapons enterprise such that we will see the beginning of the manufacture of missiles in Australia in two years.

These are serious decisions, backed up by real money. But the task of the government has been made all the more difficult by virtue of the mess that we inherited from those opposite—from the Leader of the Opposition. In coming to government, there was no money for a full quarter of what Defence was expected to purchase. That's because we saw announcements like one for a $35 billion guided weapons enterprise with only a billion dollars committed to it. We saw an announcement of an increase in the cybercapacity of the Australian Signals Directorate through REDSPICE, with an $8 billion hole in it. There was announcement after announcement without anything like the real allocation of money for it. It was as if they were trying to do 'defence by press release'. And what that meant was that the defence budget didn't add up and the defence establishment was left wondering what programs would actually make it to reality.

That is the legacy of the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to defence. But it wasn't just defence. In home affairs, we see that the minister took his eye off the ball, as has been revealed by the Nixon review. As the health minister, he sought to abolish bulk-billing. His record speaks for itself; he was a ministerial wrecking ball. Now, as the Leader of the Opposition, he has not one single positive plan for the future. And, for all their bluster over there, last week, when Andrew Bolt asked the shadow minister the very simple question as to whether or not the Liberals would increase funding on defence, the shadow minister's answer, if not anything else, was candid and it was clear. He said, 'I can't commit to increase spending.' The shadow minister mightn't be able to commit to it, but we can. We are increasing defence spending not just in accordance with the trajectory that we inherited from those opposite but by much more, taking defence spending to 2.3 per cent of GDP over the next 10 years. (Time expired)