SUBJECT | Defence Industry | 24 April 2023
PETE STEFANOVIC: Joining us live is Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan. Dan a few drops this morning on guided missiles and an industry that will get a funding boost in the years ahead. What do you make of what's been revealed so far for an opposition point of view?
TEHAN: We’ll give it very, very serious consideration. We’ve got to wait till we see the whole review, and that's what we'll do, and we’ll consider it thoroughly. This is an incredibly important document for our nation's future. We've got to make sure that we get the strategic direction right. So, this isn't something we’ll base our decisions on leaks that the government have put out. We’ll seriously consider it, and the key focus from an opposition point of view will be on implementation because Labor is great at reviews, but they’re poor at implementation, and that's what we'll be focusing on.
STEFANOVIC: Do you share any of the concerns that have been expressed over the weekend that the Navy is getting the upper hand over the Army here with what's been leaked so far, namely the newer versions of Armoured Personal Carriers being reduced?
TEHAN: One of the problems and issues around leaking selective parts out of documents - and it looks like the government has done this deliberately over the weekend - is that it leads to conclusions like that. Now, we're not going to base our decisions on what the government has deliberately leaked out. We're going to wait. We're going to look at the whole report. We're going to do this sensibly. That's how you should consider the defence posture of this nation, not by playing games and leaking things out. You have to do it seriously. So we’ll wait for the whole report. We'll consider it in detail, and then we will respond because this is too important to play games with.
STEFANOVIC: Are you curious about the timing just finally here, Dan, a day before Anzac Day?
TEHAN: Well, they’re questions that the government has to answer. For us, we just want to make sure we examine the whole document, look at it seriously, and make sure that we've got a response. And like I said, hold the government to implementation, when they were last in power their delivery of anything was zilch. So what we want to make sure is that if we're going to have this review, if they're going to say this is where we need to go, we've got to make sure they implement it, because that's where Labor always fails is on the implementation. So that's what we'll be focusing on, we’ll be considering it in detail, as a whole, and then responding accordingly.
STEFANOVIC: OK Dan Tehan, the Shadow Immigration Minister.
