Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Defence Housing Australia Amendment Bill 2025, and I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes:

(1) that the strategic environment facing Australia is the most challenging since the Second World War, requiring increased investment in national defence capability;

(2) that the credibility of the AUKUS partnership depends on Australia's ability to deliver housing and infrastructure for allied personnel in a timely and secure manner;

(3) that the Bill expands Defence Housing Australia's responsibilities without any additional funding or a supply-side housing strategy to support defence families or allied personnel;

(4) the importance of strengthening Australia's alliances with the United States and the United Kingdom through delivery—not just declarations; and

(5) the urgent need for the Government to commit to increasing defence expenditure to at least 3 per cent of GDP, and to deliver the enabling capabilities required to protect Australia's prosperity, security, and way of life".

The coalition supports this legislation and will facilitate its passage to support the implementation of AUKUS, but I rise also to issue a warning. This bill must not be a substitute for delivery. It cannot be another example of the Albanese government legislating without funding, promising without planning and expanding responsibility without expanding capacity.

Australia faces the most challenging strategic environment since the Second World War. Authoritarian regimes around the world are flexing their muscles. We've seen it with Iran, both directly and through their proxies in the Middle East. We're seeing it with Russia and, of course, their illegal invasion of Ukraine. But we are also seeing it with the rapid military build-up by the Chinese Communist Party to our north. There is no shortage of experts telling us that we are now seeing great power conflict, or the risk of it, on a scale that we haven't seen since the Second World War. In that context, it is incredibly important that Australia do its bit, alongside our allies, to make sure that we defend our great nation, that we ensure that there is ongoing peace to our north and that we recognise above all that peace is achieved through strength and through deterrence. Weakness is provocative, and, at any time through history of great power conflict, that has always been true.

This bill before us is small in size, but it is serious in consequence. It enables Defence Housing Australia to accommodate US and UK submarine crews under Submarine Rotational Force—West beginning from the third quarter of this year. These are not tourists; they are deployed allied forces who are here to train, to deter and to uphold regional stability. If we can't house them, we can't host them. And, if we can't host them, AUKUS cannot function. So let me be clear: this is not about charity for our allies; it is about our own national interests.

It is important to spend a moment talking about alliances, because some in this place see alliances as compromises. They see alliances as compromises to our sovereignty. But, throughout history, we know that alliances don't undermine sovereignty—they underpin it. This has always been true, and the strength of our alliances will determine the strength of our sovereignty. It has long been true that some in this place and around our country are keen to undermine and criticise our alliances, particularly that with the United States. But this alliance has long underpinned our sovereignty and peace in the Indo-Pacific, and it will continue to for a long, long time—I have no doubt. But its continuation as an underpinning of peace in the Indo-Pacific is determined by the work we do as a key alliance partner in the region, alongside Japan and the role of others—India, of course, is increasingly playing a role in this. But those alliances are absolutely essential to peace and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

From the First World War to Afghanistan, Australia has never secured peace by standing still; it has done so by standing alongside trusted partners, by showing resolve and by building capability. Our prosperity, our security and our way of life have always depended on our ability to deter aggression through credible cooperation, and nothing undermines that credibility faster than failure to deliver. This bill will be the first operational test of AUKUS on Australian soil. Submarine rotations, joint training, integrated deterrence—none of these work without housing. If the Albanese government fails this test, the consequences will not be contained to Stirling and Western Australia; they will be felt in Washington, in London and in every corner of the Indo-Pacific. AUKUS is a generational national project. If we failed to deliver, it would be one of the most serious foreign policy failures in living memory.

The coalition support this bill because it aligns with our core principles when it comes to defence strategy. Firstly, and perhaps foremost, we strongly believe that defence policy must move from rhetoric to readiness. This means acting with urgency and getting capability into the hands of our forces now—not in 10 years time. It is beyond comprehension, in that context, that the Minister for Defence has accepted no longer receiving readiness reports and reviews from the ADF. It defies comprehension! How can we know whether we are prepared, and whether our ADF is in the position it should be in, without getting official reports from the ADF? But that is exactly what has happened in recent times under this government. Defence policy must move from rhetoric to readiness. We hear a lot of rhetoric from the Minister for Defence; he loves a good bit of rhetoric. But readiness is not built on rhetoric; it is built on reality, and we are not seeing that from the current defence minister and from this government.

Secondly, we must be able to stand on our own two feet. But that is only achieved through the strength of our alliances. The strength of those alliances means that sovereignty can be real and that we are able to stand on our two feet. Now, that does mean having the capability here in Australia and, where appropriate, that capability being developed in Australia, and we have seen from this government commitments to sovereign missile manufacturing in this country that, as yet, has not occurred. Again, they're all talk and no action. If we are to be serious about sovereignty then we need to act on it, and, so far, we have seen this government and this defence minister fail on that front.

Thirdly, agility must become a strategic asset. I think we have all seen in recent times, in what's occurring in Ukraine, what's occurred more recently in the Middle East and what has occurred with Israel and Iran, an increase in ability, innovation, military capability and military preparedness that was not obvious before these conflicts emerged. These technologies extend to drones, obviously, and that's been a major feature of the war in Ukraine. It's also been a major feature of the successes of Israel in recent times in taking on Iran.

We need to get serious about these technologies and these innovations. We're seeing it not just in drone technology. We're seeing it in undersea technologies. We're seeing it in missile technologies. We're seeing it in sensing technologies, and of course AUKUS Pillar II is focused on exactly this. Now, it's all good to talk about it, but achieving agility is harder than talking about it. It's time this government got serious about agility in military capability and stopped setting itself goals that it fails to meet. Get on with doing the job. We need leaner decision-making, faster procurement and deployable infrastructure, not just more bureaucracy. We've got a command structure in the ADF that is going to continue to make innovation and agility incredibly difficult.

Fourthly, people are the foundation of capability. If we don't house, support and retain those who serve our great nation—Australian Defence Force personnel, allied forces and critical enablers—we will ultimately have what ASPI has called a 'paper defence force'. That, of course, is completely unacceptable to the Australian people. Now, when it comes to moving from rhetoric to readiness, standing on our own two feet on the platform of our great alliances, with agility becoming a strategic asset and people becoming the foundation of our capability, this bill has the potential to touch on every one of these pillars. But its passage cannot be where the conversation ends, because, while the legislation expands Defence Housing Australia's remit, it offers no funding, no supply plan, no capacity uplift and no strategic guidance, and that is completely unacceptable.

Let me turn, then, to funding and resourcing for what is required here, what is necessary to support and sit alongside this bill as a complement to it. This government continues to legislate ambition without resourcing it. It likes to do this in all sorts of places. It likes to do it in housing more generally. I mean, this is a government who committed to 1.2 million houses. It legislates ambition; it loves to do that, but where's the outcome? We know that outcome is not going to be achieved. We see it in their energy policy of 82 per cent renewables—ain't gonna happen! It's on the front page of the papers. It's not going to happen. It's not just this bill, of course. We see this pattern right across the board.

Labor's Defence Strategic Review cut or delayed more than 20 major projects. Their integrated investment program remains uncosted and unfunded. It is clear, from expert after expert, that if Labor is to properly implement its own Defence Strategic Review it will need to substantially increase funding to around three per cent of GDP. But there is no such commitment from this government. This bill itself, which widens eligibility and expands responsibilities—and we welcome that—comes with zero dollars in new investment. Let me remind the House that the coalition committed to lifting defence spending to 2½ per cent of GDP within five years and to three per cent within a decade. In opposition, we have reaffirmed that three per cent is the minimum required to meet the circumstances that we face, which the Prime Minister has said are the 'most uncertain and the most dangerous, indeed, since the Second World War'.

Labor is still stuck at around two per cent of GDP, and there is no credible pathway to the increase needed to deliver on what we need at this time. There is no plan to close the gap between what Defence needs and what Labor is willing to fund. They are underfunding their own defence strategy. The Prime Minister and Minister for Defence are fond of announcing reviews—they love a review; they love a target—but you cannot fight in a conflict on the back of a review. It doesn't work. Reviews are not great deterrents. Reviews are not a signal of strength. Capability is a signal of strength. You cannot deter aggression with PowerPoint, and you cannot build housing with rhetoric.

We've already seen the consequences. Recruitment in the Defence Force is collapsing. In terms of personnel, We know we're thousands short of the government's own targets. Projects are on ice, capability gaps are widening, and now even housing for our allies—housing is central to the AUKUS enterprise—is being pursued without a cent of additional funding. The risk here is this: in order to house the alliance partners, the suppliers and others necessary to make AUKUS a reality, we are able to house less of our own Defence Force personnel. To crowd out our own Defence Force personnel at a time when we are struggling to recruit and retain those necessary to keep a credible defence force is completely unacceptable.

This is not a serious defence posture. It is a political drift dressed up as reform. The coalition, as I say, supports this bill. But we do so while moving the second reading amendment to make clear that the government must step up. It must fund Defence Housing and allied support services, it must provide a credible plan to expand DHA's supply pipeline, it must ensure rigorous security screening for all non-ADF recipients, and, most of all, it must deliver, not delay, the enablers of capability. This is not just about Stirling, which will be the initial focus, of course, from the government. It should be. This is an absolute priority because it's central to AUKUS and central to the nuclear-submarine capability that we need at this time. But it's also about whether Australia will meet this moment, whether we can support our alliances and our commitments to a peaceful Indo-Pacific, and whether we can defend ourselves in the event of conflict.

It is important to remember that the purpose of all of this is not conflict. The purpose is peace. That is the objective of the exercise here, but peace is only achieved through strength, through capability, through delivery and through reality, not rhetoric, and we are not seeing it from those opposite. Legislation is one thing; delivery is another. We won't let this bill become another example of underfunded ambition, missed opportunity and strategic naivety. When it comes to defending our great nation and when it comes to the first duty of any government, which is to protect its citizens and the prosperity of its citizens at a time like now, the Australian people expect leadership.

It is easy to understate the importance of a peaceful Indo-Pacific, of trade being able to continue through the South China Sea without any kind of intervention. It is important to highlight how crucial this is not just to our safety and security but to our economic prosperity. This is a piece of this whole story that is not discussed nearly enough—that peace in the Indo-Pacific underpins our prosperity. It underpins our prosperity as well as our security, our safety. Our alliances with the United States and the UK through AUKUS but with others as well, such as Japan and India, are absolutely essential to that. Our allies expect us to be a credible partner. Our service personnel, present and future, expect a government that matches its words with action.

I'll finish with a word about our defence personnel. I said earlier that this government is absolutely failing on its own goals in terms of defence personnel in this country and the recruitment and retention necessary to have a defence force of a size the government has itself set as its goal. This is letting down not just our nation but the people who serve this country now. I was very privileged last night to spend time with some of our bravest veterans, our special forces personnel. There were mostly veterans there last night to see an extraordinary documentary called Bravery and Betrayal. I strongly encourage everyone in this place to see this documentary. It is a story of the extraordinary bravery and the extraordinary sacrifices of our special forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan. There are times when I think we don't pay enough tribute to those who were part of that important work, those who sacrificed not just by serving our nation at that time but, in some cases, by making the greatest sacrifice of all and losing their lives. I pay tribute to those extraordinary men and women who served us in Iraq and Afghanistan. I pay particular tribute to those, some of whom we saw of last night and some of whose family we heard from last night, who made the ultimate sacrifice for our great nation. I commend this bill to the House.

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