Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. In the 2023-24 financial year, our government spent $16.6 billion on procurement for the Australian Defence Force—more than in any year of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. In fact, it was more than in any other year, full stop, because, at the time, this was the largest amount that had ever been spent on procuring for the Australian Defence Force. And then, last financial year, we spent even more: $18.2 billion. So, as a result, we have the Rheinmetall facility in Brisbane, employing hundreds of people, building the armoured reconnaissance vehicles for our Army and, in fact, the German army. We have the new Hanwha facility at Avalon in Geelong, which in time will support 1,800 jobs, building self-propelled howitzers and the infantry fighting vehicles for the Army. And very soon we will have the Kongsberg facility at Williamtown, near Newcastle, building long-range missiles as a result of the more than $16 billion over the decade that we are investing in establishing a missile-manufacturing capability in this country.

But, in addition to supplying the ADF, under the banner of AUKUS and through legislation that passed the US Congress at the end of 2023, the complementary legislation that passed our parliament at the beginning of 2024 and the reforms in the UK, barriers across our respective defence industries have been greatly reduced, and, in turn, what we've now seen is more than 470 businesses in Australia become licence exempt as they contribute to the defence supply chains of the United States and the United Kingdom. In that time, it has facilitated more than $130 million of Australian defence industry exports to the US and the UK, $110 million of which has happened just since February.

This is a transformation. Australian defence industry is growing and, with it, the nation's sovereign industrial capability. That stands in such stark contrast to the lost decade that we saw from those opposite. When the Liberals were sitting around in their smoking jackets and slippers—

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