James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

My question as to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Wong. Minister, the government is facing a rank-and-file party revolt over AUKUS ahead of next week's Labor National Conference, with media reporting more than 40 Labor branches all calling for a review. Is this division within the Labor Party the reason for the Albanese government's billions of dollars in cuts to the defence budget, which is being forced to absorb more of Australia's commitment to Ukraine, reallocate defence funds to DFAT and is still expected to find additional as-yet unidentified savings from within the remaining defence budget?