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

He is now the shadow minister for defence. He sat in the cabinet room while the previous government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, failed to do anything about developing a submarine shipbuilding contract—for six years. Not only did they fail to do that for six years; they took $16.8 billion from the Defence budget. This government will always do the right thing by the Australian people and will act within the law. When it comes to Operation Sovereign Borders, we will operate within the confines of the security of those operations.

Before I finish, I put on the record that, on 25 July 2012, the former Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd said:

The robust principle of all prime ministers and foreign ministers, past and present, is that we don't comment on intelligence matters.

Furthermore, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bob Carr, said on Sky News on 28 May 2013:

I won't comment on matters of intelligence and security for the obvious reason—we don't want to share with the world and potential aggressors what we know about what they might be doing and how they might be doing it.

I suggest that they get on with some more serious policy matters on the other side and stop getting in the way of a government that is doing a very good job.