Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

As is always the wont with Labor, they have the headline figure and they have the big announcement. Senator Johnston will undoubtedly recall the big announcements in defence—huge! Huge white paper; defence spending was going to be bigger than anything and then—what?—they stripped $16 billion—$16,000 million—out of defence. So get the big headline as to what they are going to do and then they do the exact opposite.

The sad thing is they did exactly the same in the research and development area. Big headlines, big spending and big announcements, and then when you had a look—