Senator PAYNE (New South Wales—Minister for Defence) (14:16): I thank Senator Whish-Wilson for the question. I think that if one casts an eye across the white paper itself—particularly in relation to the strategic outlook, Australia security environment and the issues that that canvasses in the white paper, Australia's defence strategy, the future Australian Defence Force and a number of other aspects of it, including the chapter called 'positioning Defence for tomorrow's challenges'—what the reader and those interested would see is that we have very carefully and very methodically assessed the circumstances in which we find ourselves now in the early years of the 21st century but also most importantly across the decade hence and the one beyond that. We recognise that the security environment is, to say the very least, dynamic. It is changing all the time. There is the threats of non-state actors, with which we have men and women of the ADF dealing with every single day in Iraq and Syria— Senator Whish-Wilson: Mr President, on a point of order: we have always had a security environment like that. I am I asking whether we have an official increase in the security threat level in the white paper to justify the expenditure. The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order. The minister was answering your question directly. In particular, she was just referring—as you rose to your feet—about the constant changes in threat levels. Senator PAYNE: As I was saying, we do have men and women of the ADF currently deployed in Iraq and Syria, dealing with some of those very, very dynamic changes in Australia's security environment—or security threats, to use Senator Whish-Wilson's words. That is but one example of where we are dealing with a very challenging world environment. Domestically and within our region, Defence is most definitely involved in and has a focus on this sort of activity internationally because of the sorts of issues that Senator Whish-Wilson has raised. Domestically and then within our region, we also have returned foreign fighters and nearby state fragility. Those sorts of issues are very dynamic ones. The white paper addresses it very directly. I fail to see what Senator Whish-Wilson is referring to. (Time expired)