Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to very much thank the member for Wakefield for his question and I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate him on the arrival of his brand new baby daughter. The member for Wakefield of course has a strong interest in this matter, as does every South Australian. The government has in fact made very significant commitments to naval shipbuilding in Australia, and the government's commitments are backed by real funding. We will ensure that 21 Pacific patrol boats, 12 offshore patrol vessels, nine Future frigates and 12 Future submarines are built in Australia. The member for Wakefield asked about the ASC and the structure. That is going to be 54 vessels that we have committed to from Australian yards, which compares of course to zero vessels that were built by Labor in the six years that Labor was in government.

The finance minister is the shareholder minister for the ASC, which is of course constructing the air warfare destroyers for the Navy and conducting the full-cycle docking in South Australia for Collins submarines. To ensure that the ASC has the best possible structure to pursue future shipbuilding opportunities and to support the government's naval shipbuilding objectives, the government announced on 11 October that the ASC will be structurally separated into individual shipbuilding, submarine sustainment and infrastructure businesses. The infrastructure company will hold and manage significant upgrades of shipbuilding and infrastructure assets to support future shipbuilding and submarine programs, and the shipbuilding company will employ the skilled shipbuilding workforce and complete the air warfare destroyer project, while the submarine sustainment company will employ the submarine sustainment workforce and sustain the Collins class submarines.

These structural changes will not have an impact on the ASC employee terms and conditions, which, I am sure, is also of interest to the member opposite. The structural separation is, in fact, designed to ensure that the ASC is in the best possible position to pursue future shipbuilding opportunities and to support the government's long-term plans for the Australian naval shipbuilding industry. It will deliver a more efficient and flexible approach. It will facilitate the necessary investment in infrastructure and in workforce capability and facilitate the significant ramp-up in shipbuilding related jobs as required to better support multiple build programs under our naval shipbuilding plan.

Our intention is for the ASC structural separation to be completed in 2017. It has been noted in the press release about the separation that they have, in fact, effectively been operating separate submarine and shipbuilding businesses for the last two years. The chair, Bruce Carter, commented that this operating model:

… has been a major contributing factor in the company's turnaround in the Collins Class submarine and Hobart Class air warfare destroyer programs …

The structural separation of the ASC demonstrates the significant value that this government places on our skilled naval shipbuilding workforce, and the government fully expects that the Collins sustainment and AWD programs will be able to continue their strong performance within their standalone entities and deliver world-class capability to the Australian Defence Force.

On this side, we believe it is very important to make investments in our defence capability. Those opposite cut our investment in defence to the core. It cut to the core to levels that we have not seen since about 1938, I think it was. So it is no wonder that those opposite were not actually able to build anything during their time in government. It is no wonder that those opposite are quite ashamed of their record. Not only have we announced an investment plan, we are also delivering it with funding.

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