Portfolio — 5 June 2026

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles used a question time response on 4 June to argue that water and food security are not peripheral infrastructure concerns but core components of Australia's defence capability [TA-260604-house-97eb5e75391c:s153]. Responding to a member's inaugural question, Marles drew a direct line from civil resource security to national resilience and defence posture, framing the link through two policy instruments: the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and the National Defence Strategy released approximately one month prior [TA-260604-house-97eb5e75391c:s153].

The 2023 Review's call to reconnect the civil economy with national security — a practice Marles described as not undertaken since the end of the Second World War — provided the historical anchor for his argument. The more recent National Defence Strategy, he noted, repeats and reinforces a whole-of-government approach as live policy, not aspiration. Marles stated the government is actively working across all departments and agencies, including those with water security responsibilities, to assess their contribution to the national defence effort.

The exchange is notable for the breadth of the portfolio connection Marles drew: by explicitly naming water security agencies as participants in the defence assessment process, he signalled that the whole-of-government framing carries operational weight rather than serving purely as rhetorical positioning. The single source record for this segment covers only this exchange; no comms stream material accompanies the parliamentary contribution, and no prior context candidates were supplied, so the Note reflects this single window of activity.