David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

We are a government committed to delivering a surplus on time and as promised. The 2012-13 budget delivered by Treasurer Wayne Swan ensures that we will achieve this before any other major economy. In contemplating the importance of that, I am reminded of a quote from a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military forces who said, 'The greatest single strategic threat faced by the United States is its national debt.'

A surplus is part of our strategy to ensure the strength of our economy and the future economic security of our nation. A strong economy is good for all Australians. However, the fiscal reality of the global situation means that there are very clear implications for Defence, as there have been for all government departments and agencies. But what the opposition has failed to appreciate and sought to politicise in its own flamboyant and hysterical terms is that Australian Defence Force operations will not be adversely affected by budgetary restraint. There will be no adverse impacts on operations in Afghanistan, East Timor or the Solomon Islands. There will be no reduction in the number of military personnel in any of our three services—Navy, Army or Air Force. There will be no implications for the equipment of forces about to be deployed or their deployment. There will be no reduction in conditions or entitlements for service personnel other than those being considered as part of the ongoing strategic reform program.

There will be a minimum impact on the delivery of core defence capabilities, and from a strategic perspective there has been no fundamental change to our defence budget. There has been no fundamental change because when one sets aside the hysteria and hyperbole from those opposite, we can come to the cold, hard facts—and cold, hard facts which generally escape those opposite. We saw the claim being made that the defence budget had been cut by $25 billion—what errant nonsense; what dangerous and destructive nonsense. When well conducted, a defence debate should be bipartisan. Instead, it is now in the hands of the hysterics and crisis mongers opposite and not receiving the cold analysis that defence matters require.

In fact, the reality is that defence spending has been cut across the forward estimates from $109 billion to around $104 billion. For people who are passionate about defence, and I am one, those savings measures have been difficult and they involve difficult choices. But please do not let the people of Australia or any of those in the defence family who are listening to this debate imagine for a moment that the defence department is facing the kind of wholesale crisis those opposite dearly wish was the case. When one considers the level of defence spending in this country, let us just bring a little fact and reason to the debate, however uncomfortable the opposition are with those that. For the first time ever in this nation's history, this government has budgeted over $100 billion for this nation's defence across the forward estimates. That is to say, notwithstanding these cuts, we are still spending more on the defence of this nation today than those opposite ever did.

Further, let us take a moment and look at the various miscellany of quotes those opposite have flung at us. They have flung quotes at us from various characters inside the defence debate who are at odds, some of whom do not agree with one another let alone the opposition. Dr Mark Thomson from ASPI is a classic case in point—a highly credentialled gentleman, a person whose utterances in the defence debate are always taken very seriously, a man who believes the defence budget as it presently exists is open to further cuts and that a smaller force would be justified. I am sure that if those opposite had a clue about what it is that they are discussing, they might have neglected to quote him in the terms that they did.

We see when we look at the opposition and their conduct in these matters that while they are always keen to add hysteria and crisis to the debate, they do not come to this conversation with a commitment. They do not come to this conversation with anything like an undertaking to the defence family. In fact, their undertaking is as follows:

The Coalition will commit to restoring the funding of Defence to 3% real growth out to 2017/18 as soon as we can afford it.

'As soon as we can afford it'—that means never. That means that, God forbid, if those opposite should ever form a government, we will see on day one various Liberal characters roll out to the front and say: 'Oh my goodness, we cannot afford it. There's no money for defence. It's someone else's fault.' We know the game that is being played but, most critically, so do the men and women of our defence forces, and so do the loyal people who staff and work so assiduously in the Department of Defence.

The Liberal Party is not coming over the hill to save the defence department from Labor Party cuts; rather this is a $70 billion black hole operation that is going to try to roll into government and then blame every failed commitment— (Time expired)