Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this motion for an order for the production of documents. There is already too little transparency around defence spending in this country. In the last two years, we have seen from this government a record increase in defence expenditure since the Second World War. We've seen a new plan for Australia to become a top 10 global weapons exporter. To use a submarine analogy, it's not a good enough excuse for the Labor Party to come into this place in lock step with the Liberal Party under silent running, not being able to be scrutinised because you're going to be a party of government. That's the whole problem: being in lock step on national security when we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on critical projects that the Australian people need information about. The more transparency the better, and we applaud Senator Patrick for bringing this motion forward today.