David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Defence. Would the minister update the House on the progress of Australia’s air warfare destroyers and, particularly, outline the benefits of this project for Australia’s defence industry?

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for his question about the construction of three air warfare destroyers in South Australia—a $6 billion investment which is important to the economic development of South Australia and essential to the defence and future protection of Australia. Last week I opened the Air Warfare Destroyer System Centre in Adelaide, along with the Minister for Finance and Administration. This centre now houses 200 Australians who are employed across naval architecture, maritime engineering, and major project and financial management. It houses not only the Defence Materiel Organisation but also the Australian Submarine Corporation, which has been chosen to build the air warfare destroyers. Raytheon is going to install the Aegis combat system into these ships which, amongst other things, will be able to detect, track and intercept missiles and other objects at a distance of up to 150 kilometres.

It is very important also for the people of Wakefield and right across South Australia to appreciate that another 1,000 South Australians will be employed in this project—everything from boilermakers to high-end engineering. Another 1,000 Australians will be employed in other parts of Australia in not only shipbuilding yards but other places of manufacturing, design and development. The government mid-year next year will make a decision between one of two designs. The two that we are looking at are the Spanish Navantia F100 or the evolved Gibbs and Cox design, as they are called. These ships will carry missiles and helicopters and will be able to cruise significant distances from Australia—indeed, up to 6,000 nautical miles.

It is also important to appreciate that these air warfare destroyers will play an important role in protecting the two amphibious ships that the government has also commissioned—another $2 billion investment. They will provide close protection of those ships and surface and air defence for our soldiers on those ships, once they go to land. It is also important that Australians appreciate—and Australians recently had significant reason to pause at the Taepodong 2 missile launched by the North Koreans—that these air warfare destroyers will give us the capability, if we choose to go down this path, of having an antiballistic missile capability.

This project is nation protecting and nation building. It is about making sure that we have a good, strong maritime capability in our region and throughout the world and also, at the same time, about investing Australian resources in seeing that Australians build Australian warfare destroyers of which they will be justifiably very proud.