Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of these answers given by the Minister for Defence on submarines. I will very much enjoy taking the opportunity to set some facts on the table. I know Senator Birmingham wants to flee the chamber before he gets ousted as being the senior Liberal source in South Australia who says this government has completely mishandled the submarine issue in South Australia.

Let me remind this place of the coalition's solemn promise to build 12 submarines in Adelaide. In May last year the now Defence minister stood outside the ASC in Adelaide and this is what he said:

We will deliver those submarines from right here at ASC in South Australia.

Standing right next to him was the South Australian Liberal leader and this is what he said immediately afterwards:

The State Liberals welcome the Coalition’s confirmation today that 12 submarines will be built in Adelaide under a Coalition Government..

A unity ticket! Senator Johnston and the leader of the opposition in South Australia guaranteeing everybody in South Australia that 12 subs were to be built in South Australia. So maybe, just maybe, that is why the state Liberal leader is so angry at the handling of this issue by his federal counterparts. That is right—Mr Steven Marshall was in the press yesterday blaming the defence minister's broken promise for a fall in his support in South Australia. The South Australian Liberal opposition leader, who happened to be standing next to Senator David Johnston outside the front gates, is blaming the federal government—Senator Johnston, Senator Abetz, and Senator Birmingham and all those other South Australian Liberal senators who have rolled over and abandoned employment and abandoned families in South Australia. A federal Liberal MP from South Australia told The Australian that the submarine issue had been handled 'very badly'. So your own MPs are coughing you all up. You have handled it very badly. What he means by that is: you have told a lie. You made a solemn promise to the people of South Australia in the lead-up to the election and you have broken it.

This decision puts at risk thousands of jobs in South Australia and across the country. It also puts at risk our strategically vital submarine-building and shipbuilding industry. It is not just Labor who has warned about the dangers of this broken promise. As was mentioned earlier in question time, last year the former Chief of the Defence Force of Australia, our current Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, wrote that it would be a tragic loss to our country if we were to lose our submarine-building capability. Let me quote then General Cosgrove:

Whenever I am asked why we should build submarines in Australia, my short reply is that we can’t afford not to.

He concludes his article by saying:

Let’s use confidence and common sense and build the subs here.

There is a complete lack of common sense coming from the government on those issues. What we are seeing here is a complete capability gap and, more importantly, a credibility gap from the Minister for Defence, Senator Johnston. Every single submarine expert in this country is condemning this government's decision, for very good capability reasons. I invite those who are interested to listen this afternoon and evening to a Senate hearing into this very issue, where the country's top experts will explain exactly why this government is so deceitful. (Time expired)