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 steps being taken by the Australian government to strengthen the Royal Australian Navy? What is the importance of these steps for the long-term security of Australia?

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

I thank the member for Wakefield for his very strong commitment to a strong economy and a strong Defence Force for Australia. Yesterday, the government made a very important decision for Australia’s future—announced by the Prime Minister this morning—to invest $11 billion in out-turn pricing to build five ships for the Royal Australian Navy. These ships will shape not only the Royal Australian Navy but the Australian Defence Force for the next 40 years. The government has decided that we will have the Australian shipbuilder and defence supplier, Tenix, work with a Navantia designed LHD—landing helicopter dock. These will be the largest ships that have ever been built in Australia. The hulls will come from Spain and the superstructure and the fit-out will be built predominately but not only in Victoria at the Williamstown dock. These ships can carry up to 2,100 soldiers, they can carry 23 Abrams tanks and more than a dozen helicopters, and airlift two armed rifle company groups. They can carry two combined armed battle groups and four, for example, landing craft medium, each of which can carry an Abrams tank. And, of course, they will also carry a state-of-the-art, well-developed hospital.

Those ships are extremely important for many reasons, not only because they will carry more equipment and more soldiers more quickly into our region but also because they will allow Australia, for the foreseeable future, to meet our obligations in security, stabilisation, peacekeeping, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in our region. The government has also announced that we will build three Australianised Navantia F100 air warfare destroyers in South Australia with the Australian Submarine Corporation, at a cost of almost $8 billion. These ships will be equipped with the Aegis combat system, they will have 48 vertical missile cells and they will carry SM2 missiles and harpoon missiles, and leave us open in the future to make the decision to equip them with the SM3 missile interceptor.

The first of the ships will go into the water in 2012 and the last of the five ships will go into the water in 2018. These two projects will give jobs to 3,600 Australians. More than 1,000 contractors will receive work totalling $4½ billion out of this decision. And it is a bonanza for Australian contractors. There will be up to $700 million worth of work in Victoria and almost $700 million worth of work in New South Wales. Cairns and southern Brisbane will share in almost $250 million in work. There will be $2 billion worth of work for South Australia, $200 million for Western Australia, and in Tasmania almost $75 million worth of work. This project and these five ships will shape our nation. It is nation protecting and it is nation building, and it is happening because this government believes in defence and investing in defence. And we have created an economic environment in which we can afford to do it.