Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I listen with interest to Senator Bishop when he questions the financial management of this government on defence acquisitions and a lot of other matters. No other government has been more transparent and open with opposition members when it comes to questioning the acquisitions and the work of the Australian defence forces, which I might add have been working now at maximum effort for over seven years. At no time in our history have our defence forces had to put such an effort into their operations over such a long period of time.

I was interested to hear Senator Bishop criticise government administration and financial management, and he talked about a ‘litany’ of disasters and cost overruns. I know he was not in this place when we last had the misfortune of having a Labor government. We now happen to have what are probably the best conventional submarines in the world, but can he not remember the cost overruns and delays that we had with the submarines that were put into place by the then defence minister in the Labor government, particularly during Senator Ray’s time? We have finished up with very good conventional submarines. When you talk about cost overruns and budget overruns and time delays, just think back to what Labor did when it was in government with the Collins class submarines, to name one example.

It is a well-known fact that the best laid plans of defence acquisition do not always materialise because they are beyond the control of any government or defence force. If you are making overseas acquisitions and relying on suppliers in another country who are providing the equipment that we in Australia are purchasing for our defence forces, then sometimes it is outside the control of either the defence force or the government to change those cost overruns or the delays in timing which we all wish did not take place. Not one of us wants to see the plans of our defence forces delayed because of cost overruns and time delays.

When Labor start criticising this government’s financial management, I think they ought to take a long hard look at themselves. Over the past 11 years, this government has put this country in a position that could have only been dreamt of when it took office in 1996. I always welcome a debate on financial management from the Labor Party because they try to run away from their past record in government and the fact that when we took over the financial management of this country there was a horrible deficit, which we no longer have. Any independent assessment would suggest that this government’s financial management has been far in excess of any of its predecessors.

We are proud of our financial management. That does not mean that in some individual areas there are not occasions where there are cost overruns. We know that can happen, but, because of the financial management of this government, we can absorb those cost overruns and still run a budget that is in surplus.