David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Once we have steadied this budgetary disaster, steadied the ship, we will restore defence spending to two per cent of GDP within a decade. On 22 November this year, the shadow defence ministers, including Senator Conroy, released a statement saying that we had not yet shed any light on how the government plans to match Labor's commitment to increase defence spending to two per cent of GDP. Let me remind the Senate that this year they delivered a white paper, with chapter 7 entitled 'Defence budget and funding' and there were 1½ pages with not a single dollar figure mentioned, now or ever. This government is committed to achieving a two per cent of GDP target in a time frame, not just an airy-fairy, long-term splash of a political objective. (Time expired)