Our Plan for keeping Australians safe and secure Opinion Piece Scott Morrison MP Prime Minister 15 FEBRUARY 2019 (Translation appears in Arabic section) Australia’s national security is all about making the right decisions. Because, as a Government and as a Prime Minister, you make them every single day. We have taken decisions seriously rather than put them off to another day and we have embraced tough calls rather than seeking to buy weak compromises for the purpose of politics. Every day our Government has been taking action to build a stronger and even more resilient Australia, now and for the future. A strong economy and a secure nation are the foundations of a stronger Australia. You can’t have a strong economy without a country that is safe and secure. And you can’t have a country that is truly safe and secure without a strong economy. Strengthening our economy and preserving our security are interlocking goals. Our Government can be trusted to keep Australians safe because that is what we have done for five and a half years. Dealing with the world as it is. Uncertain, often dangerous, uncompromising and, at its worst, simply evil. We have repaired our borders, invested in our Defence Force, deported record numbers of violent criminals, and we have provided our security and intelligence agencies with the powers, resources and technology they need to keep Australians safe. But there is more to do. Our forward plan to keep Australians safe and secure in the future builds on our achievements and addresses the newer and emerging threats we face. Our plan is straightforward. • Keep our economy strong to provide the surest foundation for our security. • Defend Australia with a record investment of over $200 billion in our nation’s defence capability over the next decade. • Continue to protect our borders with proven policies that work and not changing them. • Keeping Australians safe from terrorism, by disrupting and denying terrorists the ability to undertake attacks in Australia. • Combat violence against women and counter the culture of disrespect towards women that can lead to that violence. • Protect our children online and in the real world, going after sexual predators and countering bullying behaviour. • Secure our region and our sovereignty by prioritising cooperation with our Indo-Pacific neighbours and family. • To protect Australians from organised criminals by ensuring we give police and security services the resources, technology and the powers that they need. • To fight the menace of drugs – especially ICE, with coordinated law enforcement and anti-gangs initiatives. • And to protect our communities in times of natural disaster by continuing to invest more in our preparedness and capability, so we can respond quickly and help Australians get back on their feet as we are doing even as we speak right now with the disasters that face us. Our Plan for a Stronger Economy is a plan for lower taxes and strong budgets. Backing small and family businesses and building the infrastructure that we need to support our growth and maintain our quality of life. It’s a plan that has already generated more than one million jobs in less than five years, ahead of what we promised. It’s a plan that will deliver the essential services that Australians rely on into the future, and it’s a plan that’ll deliver a million and a quarter more jobs as our pledge over the next five years. But it’s also a plan that will ensure we can underwrite our Government’s commitment to keeping Australians safe and secure. We will continue to make the choices we need to ensure Australia is the best place in the world in which to live, work and raise a family. This is our objective. This is our plan. Scott Morrison MP Prime Minister |
