Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this matter of public importance because AUKUS is one of the most important military defence arrangements that we as a country have ever entered into. Pillar I includes $368 billion dollars worth of nuclear propelled submarines. I sit here and I listen daily to those members opposite. I heard the member for Wills, the Assistant Minister for Defence, talking about the importance of AUKUS. I heard him talking about the strategic dangers that we now face in this country, and everybody seems to be acknowledging that we are now absolutely in the most geostrategically challenging times since 1945. But I tell you what; this government continues to let AUKUS slide.

When AUKUS was first announced, in September 2021, it was announced by the coalition government, and it was groundbreaking. As has been said previously, AUKUS provides Australia with a technology that very few countries in this world have, with the exception of the United States and the United Kingdom. This technology represents the crown jewels of defence equipment. Yet this government still has defence spending at around two per cent, a tick over two per cent, of GDP. What this government has done is pull funding from the Army and the Air Force and stick it into the submarine program. It's okay to be putting money into the submarine program. We need these submarines, but not at the expense of the Army and the Air Force.

The United States has recently come out and said that it wants its allies to be shouldering more of the burden of the defence of the Western world. No longer are NATO countries investing two per cent or thereabouts of their respective GDPs. They are now investing 3½ per cent in defence expenditure and another 1½ per cent on defence infrastructure. For NATO countries, five per cent of their respective GDPs is now being spent on defence, and yet our prime minister says, 'We'll decide how much money we spend on defence.' Our most important defence ally, the United States, is saying, 'Prime Minister, please lift Australia's defence expenditure.' We went to the last election with a commitment of lifting it to a minimum of three per cent. This government has got to increase its GDP expenditure on defence. It is not business as usual. In the times we're in, you cannot, on the one hand, say, 'We live in the most geostrategically challenging times since 1945,' and still spend two per cent of GDP on defence. I would have thought that was not rocket science.

Every country in NATO, with the exception of one, has agreed to lift their expenditure to five per cent, and yet here we are, still around two per cent—I think 2.02 per cent is the latest figure. The Prime Minister said, 'We'll decide,' but look at who is saying we need to increase our expenditure—the likes of Angus Houston, a former CDF. He, the author of the Defence strategic review, is saying, 'We need to increase our defence expenditure.' Greg Sheridan is saying the same. Peter Jennings is saying the same. Every expert on defence is telling your government, 'You must increase defence expenditure,' and yet this government, led by your prime minister, is saying: 'We'll decide how much we spend on defence. No-one will tell us what to do.' It is an absolute debacle. Get real.

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