Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I point out to the member for Paterson that it is polite, once having asked a question, to allow the minister to answer the question. Maybe he did not like the answer he was getting. I can understand that, but he should allow the minister to complete the answer. What I was saying before I was interrupted by the member for Paterson is that, when this air capability gap was created—and surely the member for Paterson does not deny that was the problem—by the F111 being turned off without forward planning, the RAAF was left with a hell of a dilemma. What did the minister of the day say to RAAF? He said: ‘I do not care what your problem is. I am going to have a political problem if you do not find me an interim aircraft in time for the retirement of the F111s.’

I learned in government—I did not know this prior to the election of course—that RAAF’s problem was that there was only one aircraft which could possibly be procured in time for the retirement of the F111s in 2010, and that was the Boeing Super Hornet. So what choice did the new government have?

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