Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity yet again to speak on the future submarine project, which is so important for my home state of South Australia. I thank Senators Wong and Conroy for asking questions about it again today.

We know that the government wants to break the promise that it made to South Australians before the 2013 federal election and again before the 2014 state election. That promise was to design, build and maintain the 12 new submarines in Adelaide, South Australia, at the Australian Submarine Corporation. We know that the Minister for Defence, Minister Johnston, has been sidelined in his own cabinet room in this debate because the bean counters are in control of defence capability in Australia, not the Minister for Defence and not the Department of Defence. This has become a matter of money when there are much more important issues at stake, including the security of our country.

We know that the opposition leader in South Australia is truly despairing of the ineptitude and indecision of his federal counterparts because they are unable to commit to the promises made before the state election. Mr Steven Marshall is well aware that the future of shipbuilding and submarine building in South Australia is the single most important issue playing out in South Australia at the moment. He knows that his federal colleagues are about to sacrifice over 20,000 jobs in South Australia's defence sector and to thereby condemn South Australia to a future without the high-tech shipbuilding jobs that are so important. For over 25 years there has been bipartisan support to build up the shipbuilding industry in South Australia, and it will take this government—this Abbott government—probably a couple of years to destroy it.

Today, through questions asked by Senators Wong and Conroy, we heard that there are also concerns from experts, not only about the potential economic disaster for South Australia but also about the potential disaster for defence capability that this government seems to be hurtling towards with its decision to design and build the new submarines somewhere other than Australia. We know that Japan has been considered for that, and we know that Japanese experts in shipbuilding have already been secretly to South Australia to have a look at the Australian Submarine Corporation; and we understand that Australian representatives are currently, or have been, in Japan to investigate the situation there. We know that the government is contemplating purchasing a Japanese-designed and built submarine despite the fact that Australia can and should build and maintain its own future submarines. We heard today that the current Governor-General and former Chief of the Defence Force, Sir Peter Cosgrove, said:

To outsource this work would be to export hundreds of billions of dollars of work to supporting another country’s industry and jobs, rather than investing in our own.

General Cosgrove said that to outsource that work would be short-sighted. We certainly know that it is short-sighted.

As well today, we heard that two former submarine commanders and members of the Australian Navy—defence personnel who do know what they are talking about—have questioned this government's intended course of action. They have questioned whether that Japanese submarine will meet Australia's defence requirements in terms of the range that a submarine needs, the endurance a submarine needs when it is operating in Australia and around Australia's waters, and in terms of the capability of that submarine. Those gentlemen are experts when it comes to submarines. They are very concerned, as are we in the Labor Party, about the future of Australia's submarine capability. We know that submarine capability is absolutely integral to Australia's national security and it is the one thing that we should not be outsourcing, it is the one thing that we should not cede control of. We are capable, we are more than capable, of maintaining and keeping this industry in South Australia and in Australia. This is an industry that we cannot afford to lose. We need to have a long-term view about the future of defence capability in Australia and I am pleased that Labor senators are fighting very hard for submarine jobs in South Australia.

Question agreed to.