Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that naval shipbuilding:

(a) is critical to:

(i) the Australian economy;

(ii) sovereign capability; and

(iii) national security; and

(b) creates thousands of specialist jobs across advanced engineering and high technology industry sectors;

(2) further notes:

(a) that the termination of the Naval Group French submarine contract caused the loss of thousands of jobs and contracts with defence industry sector businesses;

(b) the continued uncertainty relating to the Australia-United Kingdom-United States nuclear submarine announcement about:

(i) where the submarines will be built;

(ii) who will build them;

(iii) Australian workforce participation in the build;

(iv) the workforce skills required;

(v) the number of submarines required;

(vi) the cost of the replacement submarines; and

(vii) the delivery date of the submarines; and

(c) the recent concerns about the performance and few opportunities for Australian firms on the Future Frigates; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) respond to the questions raised about the replacement submarine contract;

(b) ensure that all Australian naval shipbuilding contracts maximize Australian workforce participation with public, transparent and audited mandatory minimum content requirements; and

(c) ensure that all naval procurement is fit for purpose, value for money and delivered in a timely way.

The coalition has been in government in this country for 19 of the last 25 years, and it has been in government for the last nine years. Today, when the government talks up the importance of national and regional security, when there is instability in the region and when Australia should be prepared, Australia has an ageing submarine fleet, no submarine replacement contracts and no clear path for the replacement submarines. All we have is an announcement about nuclear submarines and an agreement with the USA and the UK. None of us know what's in that agreement, but we have, supposedly, an agreement. We don't know who the supplier is going to be, we don't know how many submarines are going to be ordered, we don't know what the cost will be, we don't have a delivery date, and we have no commitment whatsoever on the Australian workforce content or even the skills that will be required if we do have Australian participation in the build. Simultaneously, we have thousands of workers and small businesses throughout this country who had secured contracts and work from the French submarine replacement program who have been left hanging with no contract, no work and no certainty about their own future. Hundreds of millions and perhaps even billions of dollars have been wasted over the French submarine contract. Again, we'll probably never know what the real figure is, but there is no doubt that the figure will run into that amount of money—such has been the incompetence of this Morrison government. In the last nine years this coalition government has gone from a Japanese proposal, under the Abbott prime ministership, to a French contract, under the prime ministership of Mr Turnbull and the then Minister for Defence, Minister Pyne, to the US-UK nuclear option under Prime Minister Morrison and the Minister for Defence, Mr Dutton. This is a serious issue. The Australian government's incompetence has undoubtedly damaged Australia's credibility and trust around the world, particularly with important allies in Japan and the European Union.

Now we have credible reports that the proposed Hunter class frigates may also not be fit for purpose. The BAE model is reportedly too slow, unsafe and more costly to run. These are huge investments, estimated at $45 billion for the nine frigates alone. To have doubts about the design and suitability before we even start the build again highlights the incompetence and bungling of this government. I hope we don't go down the path of seeing hundreds of millions of dollars wasted again. What is somewhat concerning is that BAE, which is the builder of these frigates, has also been suggested as the possible builder of the submarines. That in itself raises questions. Of course, none of the government ministers responsible for those decisions are likely to be around in 10 or 20 years time or whenever any of these vessels are delivered, be they the frigates, which are supposed to come online in 2033 or thereabouts, or the submarines, in 2040. They won't be around to be held to account for their decisions today, just as former minister Christopher Pyne, who campaigned on delivering the submarine contract to South Australians in 2016, is no longer here to account for the embarrassing backflip and failure of his government to deliver for South Australia.

The real issue here is that the naval fleet, and the work attached to it, is so important, particularly given this government's decimation of the auto industry around Australia and particularly in South Australia, where the hope was that the naval contracts would at least pick up some of the losses that we incurred as a result of the auto industry being closed. Sadly, we have no guarantee at all that that will be the case, particularly with the submarine contract, which for the last six or seven years has been mooted as being a winner for South Australia. We now have an agreement which tells us nothing about where the submarines will be built, how many jobs will be created in South Australia or what research and development from the South Australian defence industries will go into that. Once again, we see another key South Australian industry left in limbo, with skilled workers being lost and businesses struggling to stay afloat, because the Morrison government treats South Australia as irrelevant and the South Australian Marshall Liberal government is too weak to stand up for South Australia.

See this speech in context