Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

We will not be supporting the Greens amendment because there have been two defence white papers published, in 2009 and 2013, which set out this debate, and they explain exactly why we need the number of submarines that has been identified. What we are seeing around our region is a massive escalation. I think the current but soon to be gone minister said in a speech that, by 2030, 50 per cent of the submarines in the world will be in our region. So there is a need for our defence capability to be determined by defence forces, not by arguments that we do not have enough information. There are two white papers that have set out the arguments and I would encourage you to have a look at them.