George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

One hundred and nineteen defence projects were delayed during the period of the Labor government, 43 projects were reduced and eight were cancelled altogether. That is the Labor Party's record on defence as it limped from one indifferent, disengaged, incompetent defence minister to another. There were 119 projects delayed, 43 reduced and eight cancelled altogether. 'But that is all right,' said the Labor Party, 'because we are going to produce something called the Defence Capability Plan.' Do you know what happened to the Defence Capability Plan? It went the same way as the Labor Party submarines—it was never heard of again. So the key strategic document of the Labor Party's defence policy never saw the light of day and meanwhile not a step was taken to address the issue that Senator Conroy hypocritically this morning said is the most important issue in Australian defence policy—that is, the next generation of submarines.

The Labor Party during its six years in government achieved in this portfolio a deficit of $12 billion—there was a $12 billion overspend. You might wonder how you do that when you are doing even less—when you are delaying, reducing or abolishing hundreds of projects. They were actually doing less than had ever been done for defence, nevertheless the Defence portfolio came in with a $12 billion deficit. Meanwhile defence spending was reduced as a proportion of GDP from not quite two per cent, where it was when John Howard left office in 2007, to 1.56 per cent—a reduction of a quarter in the amount of money committed to defence and the lowest defence spend as a proportion of GDP since 1938. That is your legacy. Even then, such was your commitment to this portfolio and such was your interest in this portfolio as you staggered from one uninterested and disengaged minister to the next, even though you reduced the outlays by a quarter you still ran it at a $12 billion deficit on the budget papers. That might have something to do with who the finance minister was too, just by the way, but let us not go there either.

When Senator David Johnston came into this portfolio—and if you speak to any service man or woman they will tell you the same thing—the Australian Defence Force was recovering from the greatest period of neglect, the greatest period of policy confusion and the most serious period of underspending in its proud, more than a century long history. For six years of the Labor government—from Joel Fitzgibbon, who was forced out, to John Faulkner, who gave up, and to Stephen Smith, who did not want it in the first place and ended up as a lame duck minister—the record of the Labor government in this portfolio is one of shame. Then we have had this buffoon come into the chamber and say to Senator David Johnston, who has been given the task of cleaning up the mess, 'You put national security at risk,' when Senator David Johnston has worked night and day with commitment, intelligence, zeal, interest and genuine knowledge and understanding to redress the capability gap that the Labor Party left in Australian defence policy.

The key to defence policy is procurement—procurement of the right equipment, the right assets, at the right price in a timely way so that those assets come on stream when they are needed. So what do you think is going to happen in relation to what Senator Conroy tells us is the most important single defence procurement, the most important single defence asset that Australia will acquire in the next generation—that is, the next generation of submarines? Nothing was done for six years so of course we are going to face a capability gap. The responsibility for that capability gap lies entirely in the hands of those indifferent, uninterested, disengaged defence ministers who let that capability gap occur. That is the Labor legacy when it comes to submarines. That is the mess that Senator David Johnston inherited. As defence minister he has been doing a magnificent job in redressing the capability gap.

In the time available I have not had time to touch on the other Labor debacles like the air warfare destroyer program, which is more than two years behind schedule and was the subject of massive cost overruns as a result of the Labor government. You could go to almost any area of defence procurement and the story of the inheritance David Johnston acquired is a story of one catastrophe piled upon another, so do not come in here and lecture us about a slip of the tongue for which Senator David Johnston, unlike Senator Stephen Conroy, was prepared in a timely fashion to correct and express his regret for. Let us look at the substance—six years of neglect and at long last a minister who is determined to fix the problem.