Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister for Finance and Administration. Does the minister recall telling the Senate on 1 March this year, in response to a question about the purchase of the Super Hornet combat aircraft, that ‘the government has made absolutely no decision to make such an acquisition’? How does the minister explain the defence minister’s announcement made just five days later to purchase 24 Super Hornets at a total cost of over $6 billion over 10 years? Given this rush decision to buy the Super Hornets, where does that leave the government’s commitment to Mr Kinnaird’s two-part approval process and the objective of having in place a more rigorous and robust process for submitting defence capability options to government? Doesn’t the haste in the approval process indicate once again that the rush decision to override the Kinnaird process was not the result of immediate strategic need but just plain political expediency?