Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry, Procurement and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, isn’t it true that the failure to deliver the Tiger helicopters is matched by other recent and equally disastrous project failures? For example, the Seasprite helicopters budget has blown out to $2 billion and nearly $1 billion has been spent on the FFG project with nothing to show for it. Isn’t it correct that continuing to have massive overspends will undermine the value of the three per cent real increase in funding each year? When is the government going to accept its responsibilities in managing these projects so that the ADF gets what it needs and taxpayers’ money does not continue to be wasted?