Election 2022: Brendan O’Connor will ‘step on toes’ to bolster defence

Opposition defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor says if he gets the ministerial job he won’t be afraid to ‘step on toes’ to fast-track the delivery of much-needed weapons.

Opposition defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor. Picture: Evan Morgan

Opposition defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor says he can’t guarantee he will hold on to the portfolio if Labor wins government, but if he gets the job he won’t be afraid to “step on toes” to fast-track the delivery of much-needed weapons.

Mr O’Connor told The Weekend Australian an Albanese government would overhaul Defence’s notoriously slow procurement system to get more firepower into service quickly, warning capability gaps had left the nation exposed.

He said Labor would fast-track the purchase of new armed drones, not currently on Defence’s order list, and urgently boost the nation’s missile stocks.

Mr O’Connor said a promised Labor audit of defence capabilities would focus on delivering extra firepower “within the next three to five years”. It would also examine longer-term capability gaps, leaving open the potential for an interim submarine between the retirement of the Collins-class boats and the arrival of the AUKUS nuclear-powered subs.

Mr O’Connor said Labor would look at a variety of options to fill the gap, such as buying ­additional Hobart-class air warfare destroyers, but cautioned “that is something we would only talk about from government”.  He was unable to say if he would be defence minister in an Albanese government, amid speculation Labor deputy leader Richard Marles would exercise his right to take the portfolio.

But the veteran Labor MP and former home affairs minister said he would be “happy to do it if asked”, and noted it was Anthony Albanese’s “starting point” position that he would stay in the job.

Mr O’Connor reiterated Labor’s support for the AUKUS nuclear-powered subs, saying shadow cabinet had approved the proposition “without dissent”.

He said claims Labor couldn’t be trusted with the defence of the country were ridiculous, arguing national security “doesn’t sit on the left or right” of politics.

“The fact is, we are the party of John Curtin. John Curtin had to replace a government that collapsed on the floor of the parliament, led by Robert Menzies, and he had to take responsibility for leading Australia during the Second World War,” he said.

While the government acknowledged in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update that Australia no longer had a decade of warning before a major attack, Mr O’Connor said he was concerned there had been no changes to Defence’s procurement processes, which work on decades-long timelines.

“There is no point on the one hand to say the (strategic) warning time is no longer 10 years, and yet not deliver anything between now and 10 years,” Mr O’Connor said. “In the end, the most important thing a government can do is to defend the nation.

“That means having to consider how things are done, even if it means stepping on some toes to do it.”

Mr O’Connor welcomed Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s recent move to accelerate key guided weapons purchases by up to five years, to give the ADF the ability to hold off enemies at ranges of up to 900km.

But he said Labor was concerned about the “scale of the stockpile”, and would look to rapidly increase the numbers of missiles available to Australian forces in a conflict.

Mr O’Connor said Labor was alarmed at the fact the ADF was lagging behind other modern militaries in its ability to field armed drones.

The cancellation of the $1.3bn SkyGuardian project, revealed days after the March budget, dashed hopes Australia would soon get its first combat drones.

At about $100m each, the US-made Predator variant is much more expensive than more modern alternatives, but Defence is yet to announce a successor to the program.

Mr O’Connor said Labor would look closely at fast-tracking the purchase of “both aviation and marine drones”.

“We now have too little investment in unmanned drones,” he said. “As, unfortunately, the conflict in Ukraine shows us, that technology is very important.”