Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

That decision will of course be made on the advice of Australia's Defence chiefs. What the Prime Minister has clearly said is that the bulk of the Australian work on this project will be centred on the South Australian shipyards. That means more jobs for South Australia.

What I find quite curious about this is that Labor's commentary on this issue seems to be vastly different since they have been in opposition than when they were in government. When they were in government they did not make too many decisions about defence, other than to cut expenditure to the lowest levels since 1937. But once or twice they did make decisions about acquiring new ships for the Australian Defence Force. One of those decisions was to purchase HMAS Choules. That was not built in Australia. They bought it from the United Kingdom. And when it came to replacing the Australian-built icebreaker, the Aurora, Labor called tenders and they chose a shortlist—

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