Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I want to congratulate Senator Collins on an excellent contribution. We know it was excellent—and the people listening today know it was excellent—because she's taking a lot of flak. When you're taking a lot of flak, you know you're over the target and you know that Labor is very, very sensitive about this. They're very, very sensitive about this issue of defence spending because they've got lots to be sensitive about. They are doing nothing right now to protect our nation's defence. They make announcements, like Senator O'Neill just mentioned, of billions of dollars of money to be spent in the future but never in the present. It's actually what happens in the present that's going to make the difference between us being able to properly defend our nation and not being able to.

I first want to pick up on something that Senator O'Neill accused the coalition of: somehow departing from bipartisanship here on this issue. It is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black here because the Labor Party over the last few years have, time and time again, accused the coalition of destroying the relationship with China. Apparently, it was our fault that China took unilateral, illegal action to ban our exports because we had the temerity to say they couldn't build their Huawei network and we had the temerity to ask for a proper explanation of how the hell coronavirus was unleashed on the world. Both things were very reasonable to do, and the Labor Party didn't oppose them. But then they took China's side. They took China's side on the illegal trade actions China took and gave them credence and, somehow, justification to ban our coal, our barley, our lobster and our red wine. Instead of standing up for Australia's right to say, 'We will decide who builds our 5G network'—which pretty much every other Western country has joined on us now—they decided to take the Chinese Communist Party's side on the illegal trade action it took. Instead of defending Australia's sovereign right to pass foreign interference laws—which we did, and, again, China had a disagreement with us on that, but we had the sovereign right to do it—they sided with the Chinese government. And now they come in this place and say: 'You can't criticise us for our defence policy, because that would be un-Australian.'

No. What is un-Australian is to not stand up for our defence interests right now and point out what is going wrong right now. The biggest issue here is that the Australian government, unfortunately, does not seem to be engaging with our most important friend and ally, the United States. They have not provided a considered response to the request from the United States for our country to lift our defence spending and to work with them on a number of specific defence projects. We can have a reasonable debate about whether we should lift our defence spending or not. But it is at least legitimate for our friend and ally, who provides us with significant military support and with whom we have engaged in the most significant military agreement since the Second World War, the AUKUS agreement, to request that we life our load and contribute to the relationship.

When US Defense Secretary Hegseth made this request at the Shangri-La conference a few months ago, he gave a very considered speech that I encourage all senators to read. He obviously spent a lot of the speech talking about China and the aggressive actions they are taking in our region, threatening many of our friends and neighbours. But one thing that has gone unremarked is that the country he mentioned the second most was Australia. He mentioned us seven times through that speech. All of those mentions were very positive, but many of them indicated how he wants to work with Australia. He mentioned how the American government is establishing a project in Australia to repair P-8 radar systems. He mentioned how he'd like to work with Australia and for us to develop guided weapons and explosive ordnance supply chains. He mentioned how he'd like Australia to produce 155-millimetre ammunition, which is the bedrock of every defence force. A major issue is that Russia can produce more of that type of ammunition than the entirety of the NATO countries can right now in any one year, so it's very important for us to produce 155-millimetre ammunition. When we were in government, we supported a facility in Maryborough to do this.

Why aren't we working with the Americans on this? Pete Hegseth gave that speech, a very considered speech and an olive branch to our country. The Prime Minister was asked about it, and he said:

Well, we're a sovereign nation. And the idea that we, you know, respond to every comment that's made … what we do is serious policy.

That is an insult. That is an absolute insult for our Prime Minister to respond to a considered speech like that by saying, 'We don't respond to every comment.' I mean, get serious, guys. Take seriously what the US Defense Secretary says, instead of making juvenile and naive responses like that. I am very worried about where our country's defence policy is right now, because our government doesn't seem to be in control. (Time expired)