Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

First can I acknowledge the first question from Senator Collins and congratulate her on her first speech yesterday. Can I say to her—she would be aware, I would assume—that we have increased defence spending over the forward estimates and over the decade: an additional $10.6 billion over the forwards, and $56.7 billion over the decade.

As the Prime Minister has made clear, we fund capability. We are very conscious that the first responsibility of a government is to ensure we keep our people safe and keep our nation safe. Critical to that—and central to that—is ensuring Defence has the capability required to deal with these uncertain times. That is why we have increased defence funding to record levels—the biggest peacetime increase in Australia's history.

I would also make the point—and the senator was not part of the government which delivered this—that what we saw under the previous government was a lot of press releases but very little capability. In fact, some 28 projects were running nearly a century behind schedule; the cumulative slippage in capability acquisition under the previous government was 97 years.