Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government cleaning up the mess in the Defence budget, and what obstacles does it face doing this?

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

Can I thank the member for his question and also thank him for the hospitality that he showed me at Edgeworth on Friday. The Liberals have two great conceits: their economic management and defence credentials. But the truth, as borne out by the former Liberal government's economic management of Defence, is that they are both incompetent and inept.

Those opposite engaged in the extraordinary practice of making huge Defence announcements carrying massive price tags while completely failing to put in place the necessary funding. For the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise, with a cost of $35 billion, they allocated just $1 billion. Their announcement to increase Defence Force personnel carrying a budget of $38 billion was allocated not one dollar of new money. For those who've been involved in Defence budgeting or have been watching that closely, it has been an open secret that under the Liberals the numbers simply did not add up. What that meant was that we saw hundreds of public servants working on programs which would never come to pass. The innate uncertainty under the Liberals of which programs ultimately would survive gave rise to a confusion at a time when, given our strategic circumstances, what the country needed was precise planning activity.

The Defence Strategic Review is the single largest re-tasking of our Defence Force in 36 years, and we are committed to getting the books back in order. That does mean making difficult decisions such as reducing the infantry fighting vehicles plan number from 450 down to 129 as just one example. But given that is a difficult decision, the reaction from those opposite has been the predictable reflex of hysteria, as we have watched the Leader of the Opposition run around the country screaming at the top of his voice that Labor is cutting the Defence budget. This information was repudiated by ABC Fact Check just this month.

The truth is that under the Liberals, defence spending was going to go to 2.1 per cent of GDP over the next decade. Under Labor, defence spending will go to 2.3 per cent of GDP over the same period of time. That's almost a 10 per cent difference. It's more than what we committed to at the last election, and it's certainly a lot more than what those opposite were willing to spend on defence.