Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025
Mr REBELLO (McPherson) (17:56): I rise to speak on the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025. When it comes to defence, oversight is not a procedural matter; it's a matter of national strength, national trust and national survival. Australia faces the most dangerous strategic environment since the Second World War.
That's not a hyperbole; it's the sober assessment of every serious defence analyst, every ally and every Australian paying attention to the world around us. Coercion, grey-zone pressure and rapid military buildups are now the norm in our region. We cannot afford complacency.
We cannot afford drift. Yet those opposite have given us plenty of both. The coalition will not oppose this bill.
We support the principle of a parliamentary joint committee on defence because we believe in a parliament that understands, scrutinises and supports defence policy. We support a parliament that strengthens trust between Defence and the people it serves. But let me be absolutely clear: this cannot become another platform for political games.
The coalition supports strong oversight. We support accountability, and we support bipartisanship. But we will not support and we will not stay silent on any attempt by those opposite to politicise the institutions that protect this nation.
Australia is unique among our AUKUS partners in not having a dedicated parliamentary committee for defence. Both the United States and the United Kingdom have well-established, serious oversight bodies that balance transparency with security. So, yes, this bill has merit.
It fills a longstanding gap in our system. But it must do so without undermining the very thing it seeks to protect. The goal here is not to build another layer of bureaucracy; it's to build confidence—confidence in defence capability, confidence in parliamentary accountability and confidence in the serious bipartisanship that national security demands.
This committee must not become a forum for political posturing or ideological crusades. It must not weaken our institutions by giving a platform to those who do not believe in the mission of Defence. Oversight, when done badly, can become interference, and, when it comes to defence, interference can have consequences far beyond this chamber.
This proposal builds on the vision of coalition leaders who took defence seriously—former senators Jim Molan, Linda Reynolds and David Fawcett. Each championed a more informed parliament capable of providing scrutiny and support without jeopardising national security. As Jim Molan said in 2018: 'Defence is one of the most important priorities of any national government.
Greater bipartisanship on defence, reached through debate and contest on this new committee, will help produce better policy outcomes and the capability Australia needs to defend itself into the future.' That was Molan's vision—a trusted, disciplined, bipartisan committee that improves understanding and accountability without compromising classified information or strategic objectives.
He knew that bipartisanship is not the absence of contest; it's the discipline to debate seriously and then unite in the defence of the nation. That principle must guide this committee. Defence demands continuity, it demands competence and it demands bipartisanship, not politics.
We already have a model that works: the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That committee has earned respect because it's serious, trusted and bipartisan. It includes members from the government and the opposition only, and it has stayed that way for over two decades.
Every prime minister since John Howard has upheld that convention because they understood that you cannot build public confidence in national security by turning it into a political circus. Now the Prime Minister faces his own test. If he appoints Greens or Independents to this committee—those who have openly campaigned against defence funding, who oppose AUKUS, who question our alliances—he will break that convention.
He will inject politics into the very heart of national security. That would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, and the consequences would not just be political; they would be strategic. It would undermine the trust of our allies and the confidence of our Defence Force.
This committee must be a place of seriousness. If it's not built on bipartisanship, it will not build confidence; it will corrode it. The purpose of this committee is simple: to strengthen defence capability and accountability, not weaken it; to create a trusted, disciplined forum for examining programs, projects and delivery, not undermine the government of the day nor the men and women who serve.
Done properly, it can lift parliamentary literacy on defence, helping ensure every dollar spent delivers real capability. Done poorly, it could compromise operations, expose classified matters or allow ideology to infect national security. That is why bipartisanship matters, that is why the conventions must hold and that is why this bill must be implemented carefully.
Australia's strategic environment demands not just oversight but urgency. We are in a race for capability, for deterrence and for credibility. Those opposite talk endlessly about frameworks and announcements, but the truth is simple: words do not deter aggression; capability does.
And, right now, capability is falling behind ambition. The Defence Strategic Review set the diagnosis. The National Defence Strategy set the plan.
But, without funding and without delivery, those plans remain just that—plans. Under Labor the gap between what Defence needs and what it gets is growing wider by the day. Billions have been delayed, cut or repackaged to make the books look tidy.
The result? Readiness is slipping, morale is falling and our deterrence is eroding. Australians want peace through strength, not peace through paperwork.
They want faster decisions, stronger capabilities and a parliament that stands with Defence, not over it. Nowhere is that more urgent than in AUKUS. AUKUS is a generational opportunity for our national security and our economy, but it must be funded and delivered with discipline.
It's about submarines, yes, but also about technology, industry and the next generation of sovereign capability. Those opposite have promised the most ambitious industrial build in our history, yet they have done so without allocating the money to make it real. They've allowed AUKUS to cannibalise the existing Defence budget instead of expanding it.
Projects are being delayed, infrastructure is lagging and the skills pipeline remains an aspiration, not a plan. Drift is not a strategy. Delay is not deterrence.
The coalition wants to see AUKUS delivered properly, with a credible, costed pathway to three per cent of GDP and coordination across governments to deliver the housing, skills and training needed for the workforce that will build it. AUKUS is too important to fail and too fragile to be left to political mismanagement. Defence does not run on paperwork; it runs on people.
We need to fix recruitment, retention and housing because no defence force can remain ready if its people are struggling to stay. Under this government, recruitment has stalled and morale has slipped. Capability begins with people, and people need to know that their parliament and their government have their back.
That is why this bill matters. A serious bipartisan defence committee can ensure not just oversights of budgets but understanding of the lived realities of service—from housing to family support, from sustainment to strategic readiness. This bill is not just a procedural matter; it's a test of principle.
If handled properly, it will build confidence in Defence and strengthen accountability; if mishandled, it will undermine both. Those opposite have a choice: they can uphold the conventions that have served this nation for decades, or they can break them for short-term politics. They can strengthen Defence, or they can politicise it.
The coalition's message is clear: we support oversight, not overreach. We support bipartisanship, not tokenism. And we will not stand by while those opposite turn national security into another partisan battleground.
Australia does not need more politics in Defence; it needs purpose. It does not need more announcements; it needs accountability. We need a government that understands that defence is not a press conference.
It's a covenant with the Australian people. The coalition believes in peace through strength. We believe in a serious sovereign defence force—properly funded, properly equipped and properly respected.
And we believe in a parliament that treats national security not as a game but as a duty. We will support this bill, but we will hold the government to its word, because oversight must strengthen Defence, not weaken it. Bipartisanship must be real, not rhetorical.
And this committee must serve one purpose above all others: to keep Australia strong, ready and secure in the times that we are living in.