Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Apparently Senator Conroy does not take the CEO of DMO as expert evidence. Clearly they did not want to quote from that particular witness, but we know why: because he belled the cat on exactly what was left by the former government. But they refuse to acknowledge that now.

There is another thing they refuse to acknowledge. We never hear anything from the other side about what we really need when we make these decisions. What we really need is a very clear focus on making the decision based on our defence needs. That is how we should make this decision. We should be looking at what we need to meet Australia's future defence needs and evaluating it on that basis. They want to stand outside inquiries with the workers, they want to shout solidarity, but they never really come to the crux of the matter that this is a multibillion-dollar decision for the future of our nation's defence. It is too important to be left to the Labor Party.