05 November 2024
Labor’s $80 billion defence cuts and delays to come under scrutiny
Labor’s $80 billion defence cuts, lengthy delays and degradation of personnel numbers will come under scrutiny in tomorrow’s Defence Senate Estimates hearings.
Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Phillip Thompson said the Albanese Labor Government’s shock cancellation of a $7 billion military-grade satellite communication system – just the latest in a raft of cuts across the portfolio – will be put under the microscope.
“The role of the Australian Defence Force is to fight in and win our wars. You need the equipment and people to do that.” Mr. Thompson said.
“Richard Marles is not capable of leading our Australian Defence Force. His abysmal failure as the Defence Minister is reverberating throughout the ADF and impacting our defence industry SMEs.
“Despite the urgency of a reduced warning time for war, Richard Marles has presided over more than $80 billion of cuts and lengthy delays to defence.
“There has been repeated warnings of the most dangerous strategic environment since the Second World War yet Richard Marles has done nothing but oversee extended reviews, drive uncertainty and delays, cut defence spending, and degrade capability.”
Marles has overseen:
- A degradation of personnel numbers of 1,048 in just months
- A reduction of Infantry Fighting Vehicles from 450 to 129
- The cancellation of a $7 billion military-grade satellite system
- Delays to a fourth squadron of F-35 aircraft
- The suspension of the acquisition of 2 large navy support vessels
- Cuts to upgrades at defence facilities
- The cancellation of a second regiment of self-propelled howitzers
- The disbanding of Infantry Battalion – 7RAR
Mr. Thompson said these cuts have had severe impacts on our hard-working Australian defence force members and our highly capable defence industry.
“Under this Labor Defence Minister we don’t have a clearly articulated threat and we don’t have a strategy to deter it – the defence budget demonstrates this,” he said.
“Richard Marles promised a Defence Industry Development Strategy backed up by a fully funded Integrated Investment Program. Instead, Labor has cut more than $80 billion from defence.
“Under Labor, we have become weaker.
“We need capability now, not in ten years’ time.”
Mr. Thompson emphasised that Richard Marles’s time as Defence Minister has been nothing short of a catastrophic failure.
“Richard Marles has proven time and again that he is more concerned with his own political ambitions, rather than fulfilling his duties as the Defence Minister,” he said.
ENDS