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

I thank the honourable senator for his interest in defence. The previous Labor government has left me and the new government a number of financial hand grenades, most of them with the pins out. The first of these was the 2013 defence white paper. This was a 148-page document with only a page and a half devoted to how the defence white paper was to be funded. Bad enough as that sounds, the key omission was that there were no costings attached to an array of procurements—that is, 'We are going to buy all this stuff but we are not going to tell you where the money is coming from.' Not one single dollar figure appeared anywhere in the whole document—not one single dollar figure!

What was clear to me from the day that this white paper was released in May of this year, was that it is a completely flawed document, totally lacking in financial credibility. When I was appointed Minister for Defence, the first thing that became apparent to me was that my worst fears had been realised: the government's strategic objectives and forced modernisation plans, as described in this white paper, are completely unaffordable. They have simply treated defence like an ATM, and those proposals in this white paper were unaffordable in the face of $16 billion of cuts. The portfolio was financially on its knees. That is the legacy that the Labor Party had given us: grand plans on the front foot, making grand announcements in front of jet fighters and helicopters, but no dollars. The major problem was that there was not any funding for any of those announcements. That is what we are confronted with. (Time expired)