Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Marshall, you had better check with the attendants: I am not sure but I think there might be a seagull in the chamber somewhere. The $16 billion is what happened—the lowest levels of spending on defence since 1938. It was incompetence writ large. In 2012-13, Labor made the largest single cut to the defence budget since the end of the Korean conflict. Labor cut 10.5 per cent more from the budget. On Labor's watch, the Australian defence industry shed more than 10 per cent of its workforce because of budget cuts and deferrals.

How was the record of those opposite on open tenders? Out of 77-odd, I think there were about 70 that never got put out for open tender. As those opposite know over there, I am an advocate for an open tender on this program. Do you know why? Because it is the single biggest defence infrastructure project in this nation's history. And who is doing it? We are. What did those opposite do? Zero, nothing. And how shrill they sound. They ran out of money.

Those opposite do not even know how to manage money because they never have. All they have ever had to do is give their union dues and look after their numbers at their next preselection, and that is the only counting they have ever done. They have never had a bank manager. There are a couple of you over there on the other side, I must give you your due, that have run a business. But the only counting those opposite have ever done is vote to get elected to this place. That is what happens.

We are getting about and doing what we have to do to bring this project back into order to address the essential security of this country. It is so important to our front-line defence. What did those opposite do with it? Nothing. We are doing something about it and we are doing it now.