Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister and Minister for the Public Service) (14:01): I thank the member for Herbert for his question. Like all members of this House who have served their country in uniform, we say to them, 'Thank you for your service.' Just over six years ago, when this government was elected, we had some difficult challenges and there were things that had to be turned around. There were the terrible failures on border protection that were menacing the country; there was a budget that we'd inherited from the Labor Party that was in complete disrepair; there were emissions reduction profiles that meant we would not meet our Kyoto target for emissions by some 700 million tonnes; and, of course, there was the lowest level of defence spending as a share of GDP since before the Second World War. So we had the challenge of turning all of this around, preparing the budget and getting the budget back into surplus—which it achieves this year—but, at the same time, ensuring that we were delivering on the essential services that Australians rely on. We are now at record levels of education and health spending, and fully funding the NDIS. All of these important services are being funded by a budget that is strengthening from year to year. At the same time, we had to make up that massive gap when it came to dealing with the defence capability of this nation. This is a turnaround that saw us set, by 2022-23, a target of two per cent of GDP. I can inform the House that we will achieve that in 2021. When the Treasurer comes to the dispatch box next year, he will be able to make it very clear that we will have met that target three years early to ensure that defence spending as a share of our economy is two per cent of GDP. In stark contrast, in Labor's last budget, they slashed defence spending by 10.5 per cent. They ripped $18 billion out of the defence budget over the time of their management. You know why they had to do it? They had to do it because they didn't know how to manage money. When you run your budget into disrepair, when you can't keep the course of economic and fiscal management, you can't get the budget back into surplus, you can't meet the needs and you can't ensure that you increase spending to two per cent of GDP. At a time when there are great threats to Australia and around the world, we have important responsibilities, working with our allies and partners around the world, to do our own heavy lifting. As a result of this government's strong budget management, we're in a position to say that Australia carries its weight on defence and we are meeting the obligations of our alliances, which keep this country safe. And we will continue to do that—in stark contrast to the budget mismanagement of the opposition when they were in government, which led to the lowest defence spending since prior to the Second World War. (Time expired)