Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

It's not a speech from the minister if it's without his famed reference to the single-handed commissioning of ships by this government. It's as if the entire shipbuilding program began the day the minister was sworn in to his job as Minister for Defence Industry. There is something very impressive about the front that is shown by such a claim.

Of course, we all know that when it comes to defence procurement, we're talking about programs which are initiated over successive governments over many years. So the claim that the minister has just made, that there would be no ships built under a Labor government, is complete and total rubbish. Indeed, if you look at the two really big procurement projects which are on foot, the Future Submarine Program and the frigates, which are about to be announced, both of them predate not only this minister but this government, in terms of being initiated. If you look at this government's record, in terms of building ships in Australia, this is a government which made a decision to send the supply ship offshore to be built in Spain. The supply ship was intended to be built in Australia, had Labor been elected in 2013 and been able to continue what it was doing. It was actually that, as an example, which gave rise to the valley of death, in terms of shipbuilding, which has seen thousands of ship workers lose their jobs as a result of the policies of this government, such that Williamstown is no longer a place where ships are being built, nor is Newcastle, and hundreds, bordering on thousands, of jobs have been lost in Adelaide as well. This government does not actually have a particularly impressive record when it comes to the reality of putting in place the building of ships in Australia, but it should be noted that all of these programs have existed over successive governments and didn't begin after the last election. Indeed, the former defence minister in the coalition government, the original defence minister after 2013, Minister David Johnston—his claim to fame, as I mentioned earlier, was announcing that you could not trust ASC to build a canoe. What we saw during Minister Johnston's term as the minister was not only the building of the supply ship being given to Spain, but we saw—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

I have an important question to ask you in respect of former Minister Johnston—but we also saw, during his time, an attempt to put the submarine build into free trade agreements with Japan, in an attempt to try and close them. There was a point when you were trying to actually have the submarines built in Japan. Given that is the record of former defence minister Johnston, it is remarkable that this minister has now sought to appoint former defence minister Johnston as this government's Defence Export Advocate. This is the man who actually said of our defence industry that you couldn't trust it to build a canoe and who did everything he could while he was the defence minister to have defence industries around the world build material for our Defence Force. He is now the government's hand-picked person to go out there and sell Australian defence industry. That is an astounding decision—astounding in its irony—that this government has made.

We asked a question about exactly what former Minister Johnston will be paid to do this work. To begin with we were told that he wouldn't be paid anything. But, of course, that turned out not to be right.

A government member interjecting—

We'll go and check the record for who actually said he wasn't going to be paid anything. When we pushed this question in Senate estimates, we were not given a specific answer—and that's my question of you now, Minister. The department did say that he's being paid anywhere between $2½ thousand to $4½ thousand a day, but we don't know the exact amount because that would breach commercial-in-confidence and get in the way of former Minister Johnston applying for other work. So, Minister, exactly how much is former Minister Johnston being paid to be Australia's Defence Export Advocate?

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