Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you Madam Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition and the previous government left this government with a cupboard that is completely bare. We would love to pay our soldiers more money. We would love it, but we do not have the money. We simply do not have the funds—that is the reality. If we were to pay our fighting men and women 1.5 per cent more, do you know what that equals? It equals two weeks of the interest bill that the previous government left us. That is it—just two weeks of their interest bill! We could pay an extra 1.5 per cent to our soldiers—

Mr Thistlethwaite interjecting—

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