Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this building, there would not be a person more qualified than Senator Johnston to lead of the Department of Defence at the current time. Senator Johnston is a man of impeccable knowledge and commitment. He is a person who over many years has made it his business to know exactly what is happening and when it is happening. His knowledge of matters defence is absolutely incredible. I am proud to say that we on this side of the chamber have a number of serving and ex-serving senior Army officers—and members will know that Senator Linda Reynolds, my colleague here, is a serving brigadier in the Army—and, notwithstanding the fact that we have a number of serving and former Army officers, I still say without fear of challenge that Senator Johnston knows his stuff and knows as much, and even more, about defence matters than most others in this place.

In his contribution to this debate, Senator Gallacher said something about listening to the backbench. I have to say, Mr Deputy President, that on our side of the chamber our ministers and our leaders actually do listen to the backbench; hence, I am delighted to see today that the Prime Minister has announced that the Remuneration Tribunal's decision to take away certain entitlements of defence force personnel has been actioned. That is because he listened to people, like me, who raised it—and I cannot tell you what happens at our party room meetings but certainly, in our Senate party room a couple of weeks ago, and in our joint party room last week, these were issues which were raised by me and by others. I am pleased to say that the minister and the Prime Minister actually listened to backbenchers on this side—and we are able to have an opinion, unlike Labor senators, who were famously described by one of their colleagues as 'lobotomised zombies' who were only there to rubberstamp the then Prime Minister's decisions—that was Ms Gillard. So not only is Senator Johnston good, but he also listens to advice from people who understand the defence forces and from people who, I might say, represent the electorates containing most of Australia's defence forces.

I would like to go on to the issue of shipbuilding: can I just start by saying that we would have a little bit more interest in what the Labor Party said, Mr Deputy President, if they had any credibility. We had an Antarctic ice-breaking ship that needed replacement—did Labor get Australian shipbuilding yards to build the replacement? Did they get ASC to quote for that replacement icebreaker to be used in the Antarctic? No; of course, they had one built overseas. That shows, more than anything, that the words of the Labor Party should be treated with the greatest caution, and it shows the absolute insincerity and hypocrisy of the Labor Party in all of this debate over the building of submarines. Do not listen to what they say; have a look at what they did, when they were in the position of having to have a ship replaced.

The Labor Party have run up a debt which is approaching $267 billion. Just for anyone listening, let me put that into perspective: that means that we Australians are paying a billion dollars a month in interest on Labor's debt. That is why this government has had to take action to try and address the budget deficit which the Labor Party has left. And because of that, money that we would like to spend in many aspects of the federal budget simply cannot be afforded. We have to rein back spending from everywhere. Politicians have had their salaries frozen for at least 12 months, because everybody has to play their part in trying to get the budget back in order. (Time expired)