Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today as the member for the electorate in which the Australian Submarine Corporation is located. I rise to say squarely to the Prime Minister: this defence minister must go. The comments yesterday were the most reckless and insulting remarks you could imagine from a defence minister, but they were not isolated. They were just the latest in a series of slip-ups, broken promises, blunders and other acts of sheer incompetence by this fellow who has clearly—it is now absolutely clear—been promoted above his ability.

You do not have to take it just from the member for Batman, from me or from other speakers on this side of the House, because colleague after colleague on the government benches are lining up to say this defence minister is a joke. Some of them are doing it on the record. Every South Australian MP, with the exception of the member for Sturt, has stood up in the media, put their name to it and said that his comments were hopeless. They have disassociated themselves from his comments—except for the member for Sturt, who refuses to do that.

We have just seen another audition, this time from the assistant minister. He is but one of a series of frontbenchers—most of whom do it by backgrounding, not putting their name to it—lining up like Tonya Harding to take this defence minister out at the knees, because they have picked up the smell of blood. The member for Bass is up there because he knows that if the assistant minister moves up then he moves up to be a parliamentary secretary. You can tell it—right up to the back. The furthest back of the backbenchers have picked up the smell of blood. They know this guy is hanging in the breeze—but not the Prime Minister, apparently.

The Prime Minister is dreadfully happy with this chap. He thinks he is doing an outstanding job. He has his full confidence. He is quite happy to see a minister stand up and disparage, in the other place, the skills of some of the most highly skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen in this country who are building and sustaining some of the most important naval assets this country has—our submarines and our air warfare destroyers.

Before I get to some of those policy issues that the member for Batman has so skilfully outlined, consider the human impact. There are 3,000 workers at the Australian Submarine Corporation, mainly in South Australia but also in Western Australia. Thousands of those workers have had their capacity, their lifelong skills, impugned by this defence minister. They rightly regard themselves as having some of the best skills in this country, but they are also intensely proud to be part of the nation's defence apparatus, building and sustaining incredibly important naval assets. You have to ask yourself—even the member for Bass, I am sure, will ask himself—how does that make those families feel? How does that make the proud community of Port Adelaide feel?

I will not talk about that. Instead I will quote Andrew Daniels, who is an Australian Submarine Corporation worker—has been for years. He is a proud worker with amazing skills. He said this yesterday in the media:

We're being trashed. When I go home to my family and this guy—

the defence minister—

is telling me I'm useless ... I don't feel useless and that's pretty gutting to 3,000 workers in South Australia and Western Australia. It's not a great feeling to have your Defence Minister, you're out there doing your best job for the country and he's trashing you.

He is trashing them and that is not good. This minister does not even have the grace to apologise properly.

The Prime Minister in question time today said this minister had apologised and withdrawn his remarks. That is just not true. The only person I have heard this minister apologise to in the last 24 hours is the Liberal Leader of the Opposition in South Australia, Steven Marshall, who—as the member for Batman said—thinks that this defence minister has pretty much satisfied the criteria for resignation or sacking. He said this minister's position was 'untenable'. And it is untenable. Any veneer of objectivity in the extremely important job of deciding that next generation of submarines project has utterly gone now. This minister is clearly committed to giving these jobs overseas to Japan. He must go or be sacked.

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