Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. What challenge is the Albanese Labor government facing as a result of the former coalition government's mismanagement of the Defence budget?

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

Can I thank the member for her question and say how honoured I am to serve in a caucus with her. At the heart of the former government's defence strategic posture was making announcements. When it came to announcements, they were a formidable power. They would make announcements at the Press Club, they would make announcements at defence bases, they would make announcements with hoopla, they would make announcements with Top Gun music, they would make announcements about prospective capabilities but they would make announcements about announcements and, when the announcements were finished, they would brief the media, and we would be presented with visions of future next-generation weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But what stood behind those announcements was a different story. Often it was absolutely nothing. The 2016 Defence white paper provided for $30 billion of procurement expenditure through to the decade ending in 2026. Within two years, those opposite had quietly reallocated $9 billion of that out of Defence. Last March, those opposite made a $10 billion announcement for REDSPICE, a critical cyber capability for the Australian Signals Directorate, but it had in it an $8 billion hole. They announced an uplift of 18½ thousand Defence Force personnel but they only put aside money for 12½ thousand.

The Integrated Investment Program is the 10-year procurement schedule for Defence. After a decade of those opposite making announcements without any funding, it is estimated that the over programming of the IIP next year will be 32 per cent. What that means is that for almost one-quarter of what Defence plans to buy it has absolutely no money for. That is the legacy that those opposite have left us. It is literally all announcement and no delivery. It is as if they thought they could walk onto the battlefield with a megaphone and announce our adversaries into submission.

Well, our government is very different. We are serious people making serious decisions about serious capability with serious money. That is what we have done with the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. That is what we will do with the Defence Strategic Review that we will release next week because we understand that it is in the making of hard budget decisions that we actually acquire the military capability that we need as a country to keep Australians safe.