Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Industry) | Hansard source

I'm proud and privileged to sum up consideration in detail for the defence portfolio estimates. It goes to competing choices of governments, whether to support national security and support defending the nation or whether to support dry media releases and rhetoric.

What we saw from the coalition was a raft of talking points with no substance, which, to be fair to them, they are consistent in. In government it was all about talking points and media releases, and in opposition that's all they are. The truth is that the coalition has always been weak on national security—whether it was bringing us into the second Iraq war on a lie, whether it was bringing us into Vietnam on a lie, whether it was Bob Menzies arguing for appeasement of Nazi Germany not in 1933, not in 1935, but 10 days after Hitler invaded Poland; Bob Menzies argued to do a peace deal with Nazi Germany—and it always will be. This is the quality of the Liberal and National parties on national security. Big on chest thumping, weak on delivery, weak on actually protecting Australia.

We saw that the last time they were in government as well. For all their talk about 'muscling up' and the 'drums of war', what did they produce in terms of increased defence funding? In 2016 they announced a $30 billion increase over a decade—$30 billion. Two years later, they cut $20 billion of the $30 billion. Again, more talk. On GWEO—guided weapons and explosive ordnance—a lot of talk. What did they produce? Two media releases. That is literally all they produced on guided weapons when they were in power for that long 9½ years. For AUKUS, we had a press conference and nothing else. They are big on talk; hopeless on delivery.

In contrast, the Albanese Labor government is committing the resources to defend this nation. Over the last two national defence strategies, we have increased defence funding by $117 billion above the trajectory we inherited—importantly, $30 billion over the forward estimates. This year's budget alone saw a $53 billion increase over the decade. This means, when compared to the trajectory we inherited, we're seeing an average year-on-year increase in the Defence budget of 7.6 per cent per annum each year. This is driving investments across all of the domains of the ADF. This myth out there that AUKUS is gobbling up everything is just not substantiated by the facts.

See this speech in context