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

TAYLOR () (): Authoritarian regimes around the globe are flexing their muscles. They are flexing their muscles. We saw it with Russia's attacks on Ukraine. We are seeing it with the unprecedented military build-up, driven by the Chinese Communist Party, to our north. We saw it with the attacks on Israel on 7 October by Hamas and we have seen it with the support that Iran and the IRGC has given to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others to attack democratic countries—in fact, the only democratic country—in the Middle East. We saw that brutal attack on Israel on 7 October—the beheading of men, the raping of women—that absolutely brutal attack by those monsters. We know that the IRGC has supported, funded, armed and trained Hamas for many years. That is why two years ago, in 2023, we called for the IRGC to be listed as a terrorist organisation in this country.

When that brutal attack occurred, a couple of years ago, which we are all shocked by—I think everyone in this House would say that—it was hard to imagine that one of the sponsors of that attack, one of the funders of that attack, one of the supporters of that attack would participate in the kind of activity in this country we have heard about in the last couple of hours, but that is exactly what has happened. We know the Iranian government, and the IRGC, has sponsored, driven and been part of these attacks in Australia on Australian citizens, an attempt to harm Australian citizens—

I take the point of the minister, that it has harmed Australians. It has harmed Australians. He's absolutely right about that. We appreciate and support the fact that the government have now made the decision that they have, to list the IRGC. But there was good reason to do that two years ago, and it is important to make that point.

This does raise the broader point of the importance of free and democratic countries, at a time like this, working together in alliances against these authoritarian regimes—these regimes who want to destroy our countries and destroy our democracies and who do not believe in the values that we hold dear in this great country of Australia. Alliances with countries like the United States and the UK at this time are more important than ever, because we face the most dangerous environment we have faced since the Second World War and we need to behave in a way, alongside our allies, that reflects the danger of that environment.

Central to that is our relationship, as I said, with the US and the UK, and that relationship has long been formalised in arrangements—the Five Eyes arrangements, ANZUS and so on. But we have also, more recently, formalised it in the very important arrangement under AUKUS. AUKUS is important not just because it's about nuclear submarines that can project force at a time when we need to be able to do that, because the Chinese Communist Party—let's face it—is militarising at an unprecedented rate. This is about peace, not war. This is about deterrence. This is about making sure our region, the Indo-Pacific, stays in peace. We all want to see that. But peace is achieved through strength, and strength is achieved through alliances. The AUKUS alliance is central to that. It is also crucial because of the technology that it brings to bear. Tranche 2 of the AUKUS agreement is all about those technologies, and they are incredibly important.

But the AUKUS agreement is also about the relationship between our countries and between the leaders of our countries, and it is incredibly important at this time that our leaders work together to make sure that AUKUS is successful. We learned today that the Minister for Defence has failed to get a meeting with the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, in the United States. He's gone all the way over there. He's not here this week, so we can't ask questions of him, and he hasn't even got a meeting with the Secretary of Defense. He certainly doesn't have a meeting with the President of the United States. Of course, at a time like this and under these circumstances, you would think that the Prime Minister of Australia would have had, after I can't remember how many days—we must be getting close to 300 days now—a face-to-face meeting with the President of the United States. But no. He has had three meetings with the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party but no meeting with the President of the United States. In every major war or conflict since Federation, we have fought alongside the United States. They are our greatest friends. You can have whatever opinion you like about the leadership of the United States at any point in time, but the US-Australian alliance is absolutely crucial to peace in the Indo-Pacific, the security of our part of the world and the prosperity of our part of the world too. In fact, our prosperity—let's face it—is built on peace in our region, which has been achieved through our relationship with allies and, in particular, the United States.

It is also crucially important that we properly fund defence at a time like this, and a defence budget near two per cent of GDP is just not up to scratch. There's no shortage of experts who are telling us exactly that. John Storey, Director of Law and Policy at the IPA, has said:

… Australia's defence budget is not sufficient to rebuild capability and arm the nation to provide a credible and effective deterrent from foreign aggression.

Bec Shrimpton from ASPI has said:

As a nation, we need to accept the need for higher defence spending. Hoping that conflict won't come is not a viable strategy. If we are prepared for war, we have a better chance of deterring and hence averting it.

Kim Beazley, a former Leader of the Labor Party, said:

We can't afford to run our own game; people are full of piss and wind on that.

He added:

We have to be mindful that we've got our limits …

He also said:

We have to up our spending to 3 … per cent.

It's colourful language from a former Leader of the Labor Party, a former opposition—

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