House debates Personal Explanations

Wednesday, 13 February 2019 House of Representatives

Richard Marles

Richard Marles Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence

3:22 pm

During question time the Minister for Defence referred to paragraph 44 of the draft ALP platform, which provided Labor's commitment to a two per cent spend on GDP. He asserted that this being contained in the draft platform indicated that I'd had a win and that the absence of this in the final platform suggested that I'd had a subsequent loss. Whilst it is true that paragraph 44 has been changed in the final platform of the ALP, paragraph 49 of the ALP platform states:

Labor is committed to achieving and maintaining spending on defence at two per cent of GDP.

So I would like to assure you, Mr Speaker, and, through you, the Minister for Defence, that the win was sustained.

Honourable members interjecting—

Comments

No comments