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

I thank the member for his question and acknowledge the member as one of the great champions of defence in this House.

Nuclear powered submarines are the most complex machines that humanity has ever built—more complex than the Saturn V rocket or any of the engineering around Apollo, even more complex than the Space Shuttle. At the heart of the AUKUS agreement is a commitment for Australia to establish the fourth production line in our three countries which will build a nuclear powered submarine, following on from Huntington's and Electric Boat in the United States and BAE in Great Britain. This production line will be one of the most significant centres of technology in our country; in fact, it will be one of the most significant centres of engineering in the world. It will see 20,000 jobs directly created over the next 30 years, $6 billion of investment over the next four years and $30 billion of investment through to the 2050s. While the production line will be based at the Osborne naval yards in Adelaide, in order for us to build nuclear powered submarines in Australia we will need to rely on our entire industrial base, which will see opportunities generated in every state in the federation. We absolutely need this.

The Harvard index of economic complexity is a measure which has at one end of it the most high-tech manufacturing, sophisticated services economy, which turns out to be Japan. At the other end it has the most basic subsistence economy. It's not quite but it is almost an index of modernity. After the lost decade from those opposite, Australia now sits 91st on that index—sandwiched between Namibia and Kenya. If we are to hand on to our grandchildren in the middle of this century the prosperity we enjoy now, then the great national task for us is to climb that technological ladder. Where lies modernity lies prosperity, and building nuclear powered submarines is one of the great ways in which we can do this. This project will be on the same scale as the Snowy hydroelectric scheme.

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