The Joint Statutory Committee on Defence has been in the works for several years, but Andrew Hastie says the Defence Minister, Richard Marles, has indicated it will be a priority.

It was understood to be part of negotiations for Coalition support on two key pieces of Defence legislation - the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill, and the Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets Bill.

The bills will help to facilitate the AUKUS partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

A spokesperson for Mr Marles said the government was "committed to establishing the committee as soon as practicable".

The Albanese government has already accepted a recommendation to set up the committee, made by the so-called war powers inquiry in August 2023.

Mr Hastie, the opposition's spokesperson for Defence, said this committee was a "missing piece of institutional architecture".

"I think when Australians go to war, we should all support our troops in the field but there should be a forum where we can ask hard questions of our generals, particularly on strategy and operations, and I think that's the missing piece," he told the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Establishing such a committee would signal to AUKUS partners that Australia is asking the right questions to hold its Defence agencies to account, he said.

But importantly, this would take place "behind closed doors, because our adversaries are watching".

Mr Hastie said he hoped it would serve a similar purpose to the secretive Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PCJIS), which has oversight of national security agencies such as ASIO.

Committee members regularly receive top-secret intelligence briefings.

"If I can be so bold, I see this as being a comparable committee to the PJCIS, bound by secrecy provisions, parties of government, sensible people, and a training ground for people who might one day serve as the Defence minister," he said.

"And I think that would be a really important development for a lot of parliamentarians who care about our troops and want to see the best for them."

Mr Hastie acknowledged Mr Marles and thanked him for his "willingness to move at speed on this".