Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Defence. Would the minister update the House on measures taken by the Defence Force to enhance Australia’s security.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question and his preparliamentary profession, committed to law and justice, particularly in policing. When the government came to office in 1996 and inherited a $10 billion deficit from the previous government, one of the first things it did not do was cut Australian Defence Force expenditure. In fact, over the last decade, this government’s investment in defence has increased in real terms by more than 40 per cent. In addition to that, $900 million a year has been shifted from the back end of Defence to the front.

On 11 September five years ago, the lives of many of us were bisected into the half that was lived before those heinous events from Islamic terrorism and the half that has come since. Amongst that government expenditure in defence over the last five years has been $752 million in increased investment which has brought a tactical assault group to the eastern part of Australia to specifically provide a rapid response in counter-terrorism; an incident response regiment to focus specifically on nuclear, chemical and biological threats and incidents; and a special operations command, staffed principally by 330 specialist combat trained Defence Force personnel, to coordinate anti-terrorist capability in Defence and coordinate operations.

In this year alone, with the budget and announcements made since, this government has committed an additional $26 billion in defence expenditure over the next decade, which will include the establishment of two more battalions of 2,600 more light infantry soldiers. The government also announced, late last year, another 1,500 soldiers, supported by, amongst other things, 59 heavy Abrams tanks. Next year we will also make a decision about building three air warfare destroyers which, amongst other things, will give Australia the option of mobile anti-ballistic-missile capability.

It is also important for us to appreciate that, if it were the case on 11 September five years ago, anyone who thought that protection of Australia’s people, interests and values began and ended at our borders would have had that illusion shattered. Defending Australia is about what happens in our region and it is also about what happens in the rest of the world. The war against terror and the global struggle against Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism needs to be fought as much in Afghanistan and Iraq as it does in our region or, indeed, on our borders. We need to appreciate that Muklas, Hambali and Samudra—and others who planned to kill and killed innocent Australians in Bali—trained in Afghanistan. This is a long war in which we are engaged to see that the next generation is able to live free from this kind of terrorist behaviour and this kind of heinous terrorist fear. We need to understand that this is a cause we need to take up and that the government has well and truly invested in the future security of Australians.