Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McGrath for his question. As the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have observed a number of times this week, we have a very, very strong economy. The economy is growing at 3.4 per cent—more strongly than at any time since 2012. It's growing at a stronger rate than the world's seven largest economies. We've restricted real spending growth to the lowest level of any government in 50 years, cut taxes for both workers and small businesses, and put in place the policies to continue that growth. We know that a strong economy is, in fact, a means to an end. A strong, balanced budget means that we can fund the essential services that Australians rely on. We're delivering record spending on health, on education and on disabilities, and there's a $75 billion infrastructure pipeline to ease congestion in our major cities. It also means that we can invest in keeping Australians safe and invest in our security.

On our government's watch, we are increasing defence spending and investment to two per cent of GDP by 2020-21—two years ahead of our election commitment—to keep our country safe and secure. The government has increased funding of our law enforcement, our intelligence and our security agencies by over $2 billion since August 2014, and last year the government provided the Australian Federal Police with an additional $321 million in increased funding over the forwards, which is the largest funding boost to that organisation in a decade. As a government, we've passed 12 tranches of legislation on national security to strengthen the ability of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate, monitor, arrest and prosecute home-grown extremists and returning foreign fighters.