AFTER saying he wouldn't "get too much into politics" at an RSL club, Liberal Senator Jim Molan mounted a sustained attack on the Labor opposition today over defence and national security during a visit to Swansea RSL to support Liberal Shortland candidate Nell McGill.
"Liberal democracy is in competition with authoritarian government," Senator Molan said with reference to the Solomon Islands security deal with China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
His 20-minute speech referred repeatedly to statements by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Peter Dutton over the Anzac weekend.
The former career soldier said he "contributed" to the PM's "it takes a nation to defend a nation" speech and endorsed Mr Dutton's view that "if you want peace, you have to prepare for war".
"Because the basic strategy we have is a strategy of deterrence and that strategy of deterrence says any big country in the world who may want to push Australia around has to realise we have certain capabilities and that those capabilities may be able to hurt those countries that want to push us around, therefore our aim is to deter you from trying," Senator Molan said.
He said Labor had cut spending on defence so much that the government had been forced to effectively double it to $540 billion over 10 years in an effort to get it back to Mr Morrison's "baseline" of 2.1 per cent of GDP, compared with the 1.5 per cent to 1.6 per cent he said it had fallen to under Labor.
He said the military had fixed costs in staffing so cuts to military and security spending tended to hit "the things that make you bigger, better, stronger etc", and "we are still suffering". Since 2013 the Coalition had "laid down the keel, ordered or completed 70 ships for the navy, while the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd administrations had "produced not one ship".
He referred to the controversy over a 2019 trip to China by deputy opposition leader Richard Marles - used by the government to criticise Labor despite a National Party backbencher, Ted O'Brien, also taking part.
Senator Molan accused Labor of "a range of errors" in defence and security and said the opposition "still doesn't fully understand" the reasons for the government's border control policies.
He pointed to confusion over whether coal would be exempt under Labor's emissions reduction policies and referenced the PM's argument that effective defence included a strong economy.
Asked for a comment on the visit, Shortland incumbent Pat Conroy said: "Jim Molan's comments are a desperate attempt to distract from the Morrison government dropping the ball on the Solomon Islands."
