Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Defence Industry. Will the minister update the House on the government's Defence Export Strategy and its ambition to make Australian defence exports among the best in the world? How will this plan give defence companies the support they need to achieve export success and support sustainable jobs?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wright for his question. The House would know that this government is investing $200 billion over the next 10 years in the greatest build-up of our military capability in our peacetime history. While our first priority is always the capability of the Australian Defence Force, which we put first and foremost, our second priority in spending $200 billion on the greatest military build-up in our peacetime history is using that heft to create jobs—manufacturing, advanced technology and highly skilled work—in the manufacturing sector for the Australian workforce and the Australian economy. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity—always putting capability first. Unlike previous governments, the Turnbull government is committed to doing as much as possible of that here, because of the opportunities it creates to drive jobs, wealth and growth in our economy.

The next logical step, of course, is to expand that to defence industry as an export part of our economy, and that is what the government has committed to. We want to see defence exports as an opportunity to see through the peaks and troughs of domestic demand in our own economy and ensure that corporations that are investing right now in the equipment, the workforce and the tenders that they want to win can see through the troughs and the peaks of our domestic demand to be a force for manufacturing for decades into the future.

Over the summer, the Turnbull government released the Defence Export Strategy, which aims to take us from the 20th largest exporter in the world to being in the top 10 defence exporters in the world. It contains a defence advocate; a defence exports office, for the first time; a $3.8 billion export finance investment corporation loan facility, if it's required—which I'm managing with the Minister for Trade, who has done such a magnificent job with the TPP 11—and an $80 million commitment over four years to doing what we've never done before, which is to seriously attempt to get defence exports into our economy. We do it because it creates jobs, it creates wealth and it creates income for Australians to pay for their school fees, their mortgages, their rent, their groceries and medicines for their family.

This stands in stark contrast to Labor, the Rip Van Winkle years of defence—the six years under the Labor Party where they never made one decision—not one decision—to promote either defence exports or defence industry. Not one ship or submarine was commissioned by the Labor Party in six years, in contrast to the 54 from this side of the House. Labor doesn't support the TPP, it didn't support the China free trade agreement, and it doesn't support defence exports. (Time expired)