Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question regarding the Parliamentary Budget Office reporting in terms of numbers. There is no question that the Parliamentary Budget Office looked at figures for uniformed military and for civilians. There is no question that those numbers increase year on year and, as stated previously, those increases cover 1,500 new soldiers, sailors and air men and women and over 1,000 new gap year participants and, of course, a 27th pay, which is a quarter of $1 billion—small money compared to the $16 billion, Leader of the Opposition, pulled out when the Labor government was last in power.

Let us talk about cuts, shall we, about what things have been cut and from where? I notice the member for Batman here, who was parliamentary secretary in the last Labor government. The parliamentary secretary wanted to take away the single return travel home for Christmas from 22,000 of our people. That is what the last Labor government cut. That was their Christmas present to our troops—'You can't get to go home.' That was stopped by this side. This side stopped Labor from cutting harshly in those areas. I find it extraordinary that the Leader of the Opposition would walk in here and talk about cuts after $16 billion worth of cuts. Labor took defence spending to the lowest level since 1938—extraordinary—down to 1.56 per cent of GDP.

Let us talk about what this government has done. We have taken funding back to 1.8 per cent of GDP. We took a funding envelope to the last election with three things that the last Labor government could never do. Number one, there will be no cuts in Defence.

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