Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I associate myself with the remarks made by other members in this place on the motion relating to Peter Greste and his Al Jazeera colleagues. We wish them all a speedy release and that respect for the rule of law be upheld in Egypt. I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) shipbuilding is an industry that delivers the highest-value and most complex manufacturing outcomes produced in Australia, and therefore represents expertise and capacity that must be maintained for its very significant national economic and security benefits;

(b) as an example of the multiplier effects of shipbuilding projects in respect of the quality and range of manufacturing it both requires and enables, at the commencement of the Collins-class submarine project there were only 35 Australian companies certified to Defence quality standards, whereas by 1998 there were more than 1,500;

(c) there are currently more than 7,000 people employed in shipbuilding across Australia, including more than 4,000 people employed in naval shipbuilding alone;

(d) the Government has identified the need for more than 80 ships over the next 30 years for service in the Royal Australian Navy, and as part of border protection, Antarctic operations and scientific research, among other roles; and

(e) if Australian shipbuilding is not supported through a properly planned and managed program of project and maintenance work, it is likely that shipyards will close, thousands of jobs will be lost, and the critical expertise and capacity that have been developed will be irreparably squandered; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) provide certainty to the Australian shipbuilding industry and to thousands of Australian workers by settling a short, medium and long term program of government shipbuilding projects to ensure a balanced work flow and smooth delivery of key naval assets; and

(b) bring forward relevant shipbuilding projects, including the Pacific patrol boat and replacement Anzac frigate projects, in a timely manner to ensure that shipyards, companies, and workers are not put at risk.

I am glad to bring this motion, because shipbuilding in Australia is an industry with wide and distinctive economic value, and with specific sensitivities that need to be considered, especially at this time. It is an industry that is strongly present in my electorate of Fremantle. The Australian Marine Complex at Henderson is a world-class centre for excellence in manufacturing and fabrication, in assembly and maintenance, and in new technology development, and the more than 150 businesses within the AMC provide services to the marine, defence, and resource industries.

Needless to say, it is home to a number of shipbuilding companies, including BAE Systems, Austal and ASC, among others, and it includes some unique infrastructure, particularly in the form of the Common User Facility's floating dock, considered the most technically advanced of its kind in the world, and capable of lifting vessels of up to 12,000 tonnes out of the water. The AMC has played an integral part in the maintenance of the Collins class submarines, and is also contributing to the work that allows the ANZAC class frigates to perform their role as Australia's front-line Defence vessels.

I recently met with Australian Manufacturing Workers Union delegates from ASC and BAE Systems, who expressed their concern that jobs and productive capacity, in my electorate and Australia wide, could be put at risk if decisive action is not taken by government. Australian shipbuilders—companies and workers alike—are rightly concerned that, in the absence of a carefully planned and managed program of new projects and maintenance in relation to vessels, which the government has already identified as being necessary, the complex 'ecosystem' of the Australian shipbuilding industry will be damaged.

The reality is that shipbuilding at the level of major Defence projects can only occur through the application of capital and labour resources that cannot be marshalled out of thin air; the companies and workers that produce ships and submarines to serve roles in the Royal Australian Navy are part of a manufacturing 'ecosystem', as I have described it, that takes a long time to develop, and that is sustained by a life-flow of production and maintenance activity. Indeed, as I have stated in the motion, the Collins class submarine project had a dramatic effect in raising and diversifying the productive capacity of hundreds and hundreds of companies, and engaging the input of thousands of highly-skilled workers. That outcome has delivered and continues to deliver wider economic benefits. It also means that thousands of Australians have benefited from education and on-the-job experience that equates to absolutely top-shelf manufacturing expertise.

The complexity and scale of the industry, with the scope of both the capital investment and the investment in education and training, and in human capital more broadly, should not be jeopardised by paralysis within government on this issue. As my colleagues the Shadow Minister for Defence and the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, have consistently and strongly argued, the government should act now to provide clarity and certainty by taking shipbuilding projects it knows must occur, and committing to those projects in ways that will bridge the gap between work and maintenance that is tapering at present, and the work and maintenance that we already know must ramp-up future.

To conclude I want to emphasise the direct and indirect value of Australian shipbuilding; and I want to emphasise the fine line that exists between an industry that should continue to flourish as the most sophisticated form of manufacturing in this country, and an industry that could fall off a cliff in the absence of responsible action by government. We cannot, as a nation, afford to have another key piece of our manufacturing capacity run down, with the loss of expertise, jobs, and economic capacity that this would represent. Such a loss should be regarded as untenable by any reasonable person, and, above all, it needs to be recognised that if, through government irresponsibility or inaction, the industry is damaged, it is likely to suffer in ways that cannot be repaired.

Even from a purely cost-driven perspective it must be acknowledged that if that damage occurs, future projects will almost certainly take longer to deliver and will cost more. And it must always be remembered that Defence manufacturing is a kind of capacity that carries a national-interest significance above and beyond its economic and social value.

It is for all these reasons that I have brought his motion that calls for the government to take action to provide clarity and certainty; to bring forward projects from within the set of some 80 vessels and $100 billion dollars-worth of ships the Australian government needs to acquire over the next 30 years.

Without this kind of sensible and responsible decision-making we may well see Australian shipbuilding suffer irreparable harm, and that would be a social and economic tragedy.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sometimes, politics beggars belief. That we have the Labor Party putting forward a motion like this, here today, is beyond absurd. As a kid, we had those absurd jokes that went round the playground, like: 'Broken pencils are pointless.' This whole debate is pointless.

I see that the member for Fremantle has exited the chamber, after putting forward this motion. It is worth having a look at the member for Fremantle's commitment to shipbuilding in her electorate and nationally. I did a bit of a search of her website and found one reference to shipbuilding, which was a minor reference in a speech on manufacturing, yet here today she is leading this motion on behalf of the Labor Party. It must be humiliating to the shadow defence minister, the assistant minister and the parliamentary secretary that she has led the debate on this, because they have some pride in their own integrity. They could not, after what Labor did in six years in government, put forward such a motion.

It is worth looking at that Labor-Party record, because it highlights the absurdity of what we have before us. We should take a moment to pause and reflect; we should ensure we never have an abysmal record like this again, on either side of government. Ultimately, while we can joke and laugh about it—and we should joke and laugh about this motion—the seriousness of the important topic of ensuring we can defend our nation should be something that both sides of government strive for at all times.

What happened under the previous Labor government? There were $16 billion cut from Defence. The share of GDP spent on Defence fell to 1.56 per cent, its lowest level since 1938. Yet the member for Fremantle lectured us about making sure we have the proper structures in place—the ships and naval fleet—to defend this nation and what she referred to as its 'complex ecosystems'.

This government is already making sure we have the proper structures in place for the Navy fleet to be able to defend this nation. We will do it systematically and with proper planning so that shipbuilders in this nation know that the government is fully committed to the task at hand and that every commitment we put forward will have a dollar amount to it—so they will not just be hollow, false and insecure promises, such as those we saw from the Labor Party.

I am sure fellow speakers on my side will go through the list. We had former Prime Minister Rudd making promises, before the last election, with no money attached. We saw the previous Prime Minister to Mr Rudd, Prime Minister Gillard, doing exactly the same thing when she was Prime Minister—making promises with no dollars to back them up. This is an absurd motion. The member for Fremantle has pretty much taken our policy—that we took to the last election, criticising the former Labor government—and presented it here today. It is absurd.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Fremantle for bringing this motion to the House. This is indeed a very important matter. It has significant impact not only on thousands of jobs across Australia but also on national security, skills training, national manufacturing, shipbuilding capability, research and development, and the national economy.

Australia is considering its options for the supply of up to 80 ships and submarines over the decades ahead. That will require a huge investment, running into billions of dollars. I understand the investment in the construction and ongoing maintenance of those ships could be as high as $250 billion. Whilst the exact numbers and final designs may require further work, there is no question that the expenditure is considerable but, more importantly, it is an expenditure decision that needs to be made sooner rather than later. Even if we do not determine the final design of the boats, it is an expenditure decision that should be made: that all craft required will be built here in Australia.

Unlike so many other economic decisions and major investments this country is involved with, this is a matter for which the federal government has complete responsibility. It is therefore a no-brainer that the vessels should be built in Australia and that the billions of dollars should be spent in Australia, that the jobs required to build the vessels should go to Australians and that the building of the ships, in Australia, represents a massive opportunity to also build skills, intellectual knowledge, design expertise and national capability. If we do not currently have all of the expertise required to build the ships, it makes more sense to import the expertise than to import the ships themselves, as we did with the original Collins-class submarine project.

Any savings made by the government, if it chooses to buy from overseas, will be more than offset by losses of Australian jobs and, therefore, losses of Australian tax revenue; a worsening balance of payment figure to the tune of billions of dollars; a reliance on foreign countries for important national security military equipment; the loss of skills, expertise, research and development; and the loss of advanced manufacturing opportunities that the building of the ships presents.

Making a decision now that the vessels will be designed and built in Australia will also create long-term certainty, confidence and immediate investment by industries that are associated with shipbuilding. Very importantly, we will ensure that shipbuilding work that is coming to an end right now, with most of it due to finish in 2015—and, with that, the loss of thousands of jobs, including many skills and expertise which might otherwise be lost forever—will be retained. For South Australia it is particularly important. Not only will it ensure continuing work at the Australian Submarine Corporation, but also, with the impending closure of GMH and the thousands of jobs expected to be lost, shipbuilding provides the obvious alternative for those jobs and for the hundreds of small manufacturing businesses that will equally be affected.

Regrettably, in Tony Abbott's first budget, there was no certainty provided to Australia's Naval shipbuilding future, and it was just a case of more delay, more indecision and more procrastination. Equally disappointingly, I note that the member for Mayo—who is in the chamber right now—said, when speaking about the new South Australian defence minister, 'Martin Hamilton-Smith certainly won't get access that other states will'. This issue should be above politics, and, as a South Australian MP and a minister, the member for Mayo should put South Australia's interests ahead of his own personal politics. There are a lot of jobs at stake—some 2,000-odd in South Australia and another 2,000 around the country. It is an important decision. A decision made now will ensure that there is some security and certainty for those jobs for decades to come.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Honestly, I thought this motion must have brought forward as a chastisement for the last six years of Labor. I honestly thought that Ms Parke must be one of our class of 2013 that I had not yet met, yet it turns out that this motion was moved by the Labor member for Fremantle. Now, I like the member for Fremantle—and it is a pity she did not hang around to see the motion she cares so much about debated and hear everyone speak on it—but there is a lot more that can be said for her than many on her side. She has principles and is true to her beliefs, but, by jingo, she has stressed her credibility way beyond her means on this motion.

Where the hell were these people for the last six years? What were they saying for the last six years? I understand why they do not hang around. The member for Fremantle was one of those few MPs who did not get a run with a portfolio in defence—god knows how they loved it. Their minister, Stephen Smith, just loved the portfolio. When he was in Afghanistan, he could not even think of one single question for them. In discussions on the Navy, he would lean across to the member for Fadden and say: 'The Navy—those are the guys in white, aren't they? Is that them? Are we talking about the right people? Okay, I'm on it. They look pretty good.'

This motion is a joke and it should be seen as a joke. This motion was brought to the House by a party which made a 10 per cent cut to defence spending in one budget alone. That is the biggest cut to defence since the end of the Korean conflict, a time where defence spending reached 1.56 per cent of GDP. That is the lowest spending to GDP ratio since 1938. Please, have a little credibility—have some pride in yourselves before you come in here. This motion was brought to this chamber by a party which could not deliver, and did not deliver, a single vessel in their six years in government—not a single vessel. This motion was brought to this chamber by a party which did not have a single plan for defence and certainly not for the Navy.

I must correct myself here. They did have a plan. Prime Minister Rudd, without any consultation with anyone—least of all the Navy—announced that he would shift the entire Garden Island facility to Brisbane. The largest dry dock in the southern hemisphere would all be shifted, and it would be done inside six months. It looked like the white Wiggle when he did it, and didn't that go well! Even the people in Brisbane were sitting there rolling their eyes and saying, 'What?' I do not know what was going through the air conditioning on the VIP that he was flying around on, but it was a bit funny.

So the largest dry dock in the Southern Hemisphere would be shut down and a new one built with a budget cut of over 10 per cent in one year, and suddenly he was spruiking spending billions on duplicating facilities—not building new facilities, but duplicating facilities. Of course, just like their Defence Capability Plan and their over-hyped Force 2030, there was never any plan to fund it or do anything other than ferry the then member for Lindsay out from Darwin to look for boats. Labor held Defence in contempt and now just gives lip service to their duplicity in this matter. During their time in government, 119 projects were delayed, 43 were reduced and eight were cancelled altogether. The Australian defence industry shed more than 10 per cent of its workforce because of budget cuts and deferrals. So do not come in here lecturing us on what to do for defence.

What will we do? We have brought forward $78.2 million in Commonwealth funding to assist with the preliminary engineering and design work on the future frigate program. We need to do this just to ensure we can keep this open as an option to build it in Australia. We have undertaken an open competition with Australian industry to construct more than 20 Pacific patrol boats. How many did Labor build during their six years in government? Just let me see. I will add them all up, carry the one, and that would be none—that would be duck egg. And yet they had the temerity to bring this motion into this chamber.

This important project will boost maritime security and fishing protection for us and for our Pacific partner nations in the south-west Pacific. When I was in Tonga it was the single most important thing the minister for defence and fisheries brought up with me. In short, for the Navy we will have a long-term strategic direction—one in which they will be able to have some input, which has been sadly lacking over the last six years. I thank the House.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In recent weeks the Australian shipbuilding industry has been dealt a devastating blow. The recent announcement that the Abbott government will exclude local shipbuilders and manufacture supply ships offshore is a cruel move by a government blinkered by ideology and blind to its consequences for thousands of Australian shipbuilders. Nowhere is this clearer than in my electorate at the BAE shipyards in Williamstown. For nine months BAE Systems and its 1,000-plus employees had been waiting for action from the Abbott government. For nine months they had warned the government that the shipyards were in dire straits as work neared completion on the air warfare destroyers and the landing helicopter docks. With the completion of the AWDs and LHDs the shipyards face the infamous valley of death, where a lag in defence contracts will lead to a shortage of work, forcing the shipyards to close.

This predicament could have been easily fixed. The Australian Navy requires 48 new vessels to be procured in the next decade. Shipbuilding ought to be a growth industry in Australia with a rosy future if only it can survive the current drought of work. Of particular importance in this respect is the pressing need for Australia to replace the supply ships HMAS Sirius and HMAS Success. It was these ships the previous Labor government announced they would replace at the last election. All the Abbott government had to do was continue with Labor's plans, and the future of the Williamstown shipyards would be secured. Action could have started on saving these jobs nine months ago, but the Abbott government kept the shipbuilders of Williamstown waiting.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

They were kept waiting through March of this year, when defence minister David Johnston told ABC radio that whether Australia could afford to allow the shipbuilding industry to close was 'a very good question' and that 'at some point I'd like to think that, you know, we'll announce something.' They were kept waiting past the 1 April deadline of BAE Systems, the point where BAE had explicitly warned the Abbott government they would need to start making hard decisions about the future of their staff.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

Finally, in June, the Abbott government declared their plans for the shipbuilding industry—and the news was not good. The Abbott government were not going to sign the contracts already prepared by the previous Labor government. But, to make matters worse, the process would be opened for re-tender, and Australian shipbuilders would be excluded from participating! This from a shadow defence minister who declared before the election:

I get really fired up when I find us giving away our manufacturing base in the Defence space to foreign manufacturers, it's just not on.

I hear the Napoleon of the coalition backbench has gone quiet.

Yet upon becoming the defence minister the same man awards government shipbuilding contracts to 'foreign manufacturers' at the first opportunity. When explaining his reasons for this betrayal of Australian industry, defence minister Johnston stated, 'Australia is not in a position to manufacture those vessels'. Why is this the case? According to the defence minister, Australian manufacturing does not have the skills necessary to manufacture ships of this size. But we know on the advice received by Labor before the election that this simply is not true. A local build or, at minimum, a hybrid build could have easily been achieved. But the defence minister also found it necessary to blame the shipbuilders themselves for the decision to send the shipbuilding contracts offshore.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

Just as they did when 2,500 jobs were lost in Altona in my electorate when Toyota announced that it would cease manufacturing as a result of the Abbott government's policy change since the federal election, the Abbott government has a habit of blaming the workers for its own inadequacies. The shipbuilders of Australia should not be blamed for the Abbott government's blind obedience to the extremist ideology to offshore at any cost. If the Abbott government cared about the skills of our defence force, when why did they scrap the Skilling Australia's Defence Industry Program in the 2014 budget? Why did they axe $3.5 million of training opportunities for our defence workers—the very opportunities needed to make our defence workforce internationally competitive? This latest decision from defence minister Johnston is just another example of the extreme and out of touch policies of the Abbott government.

Labor will not stand idly by while the Abbott government builds these ships away from our shores. We will not sit and watch while the capabilities of a strategically important defence manufacturing industry are left to wither through government neglect. We will not sit on our hands while the jobs of thousands of Australians across the country are shipped offshore. And we will not blame the workers for the inaction of our own government. Labor will continue to fight for the futures of our shipbuilders in Williamstown today, in the future and across the nation.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been very good training for the member for Gellibrand to have such interjections continually raging, so congratulations! I call the honourable member for Brisbane.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too want to add to the comments that the member for Herbert made. I have high regard for the member for Fremantle, but I am absolutely perplexed that she would bring such a motion into the House today. I rise to speak to the motion pertaining to an issue on which the Labor Party made great announcements looming over the political landscape, and then what did they do? They sat on their hands and did absolutely nothing.

This is about boosting Australia's maritime capability and that is exactly what this government is doing. Labor has absolutely no credibility on this issue, and here they are lecturing this government about what to do. When you look at Labor's record in Defence over six years, it has been absolutely appalling in every single way. This motion refers to the need for a properly planned short-, medium- and long-term program for shipbuilding, and that is what we are doing. We are fixing up the mess that was left to us.

Under Labor there was no money, there was no plan, there was no direction given to the defence industry as a whole and particularly to the shipbuilding industry. Labor's Defence portfolio was a mess. Let me remind the honourable members opposite what they did. They took $16 billion from defence. Their share of GDP fell to its lowest since 1938: 1.56 per cent. In the 2012-13 year Labor made the largest single cut to the Defence budget since the end of the Korean conflict. They shed 10.5 per cent from the budget. The Australian defence industry shed more than 10 per cent of its workforce because of budget cuts and deferrals—119 projects were delayed, 43 projects were reduced and eight were cancelled altogether. This is what we inherited from those opposite. What an appalling mess they left us

The Labor Party had six years to make this decision and they did absolutely nothing. The reality is now that we need to make decisions—decisions that Labor needed to make two years ago to avoid job losses in the shipbuilding industry. Labor was good at making promises but totally incapable of delivering them. The DCP was never been affordable. Labor's legacy is one of mismanagement. Labor left Defence $30 billion short of being able to achieve the objectives outlined in the former government's fanciful 2009 white paper.

This motion mentions the need for a ship to assist in Antarctic operations, but in early 2013 Labor actually chose companies to build the new icebreaker in Europe. They do not tell us that. They failed also to allocate any money towards it. We currently use the Aurora Australis built in 1989 by Carrington Slipways in Newcastle, a shipyard now owned by Forgacs, one of the companies looking for new shipbuilding work. Its purpose is to undertake research cruises in the Antarctic and support Australian bases in Antarctica.

In early 2013 the then government put out a request for tender with no instruction that the new ship be built in Australia and no money for the project in the budget. Two companies were chosen and both indicated the ship would be built in Europe. The Abbott government then had to announce in the budget that the funding, which had not been set aside by Labor, was now provided for to allow this crucial investment to proceed. Labor has no credibility when it claims they would have built ships here.

The Abbott government takes defence and national security seriously. We have taken the first steps to ensure our navy is properly equipped and to provide the Australian shipbuilding industry with some much-needed long-term strategic guidance. Labor did nothing about replenishing ageing ships in urgent need of replacement. But we have taken decisiveness action. This is an absolutely vital capability for Navy to supports the operations of our naval fleet. Construction of these vessels is beyond the capacity of Australia to produce competitively at this time, as our options are either a 20,000- or a 26,000-tonne vessel and the current facilities are struggling to produce ships a third of that size. We need to urgently move on replacing these ships. This is the only option for a responsible government left with a legacy of budget cuts and policy inertia. We are getting on with the job of delivering a sustainable shipbuilding industry in defence.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion moved by the member for Fremantle. The motion outlines the incredible importance of the shipbuilding industry in Australia and the critical need for the Abbott government to provide some certainty to this industry. As the member for Fremantle has noted, shipbuilding delivers some of the highest value and most complex manufacturing outcomes produced in Australia. This is a highly skilled, expert workforce and the Abbott government should be taking proactive steps to maintain its capacity for its very significant national economic and security benefits.

The shipbuilding industry as a whole employed more than 8,000 in 2012-13, with revenue of $2.8 billion. It is an industry at the cutting edge of innovation and technology. Let me quote from the IBISWorld industry report of October 2013 to show where analysts saw the industry when the present government was elected:

Industry revenue is forecast to increase by a compound annual rate of 2.8% over the next five years, with revenue forecast at $3.2 billion in 2018-19. Ongoing projects have been delayed, including the construction of the Hobart Class AWD and Canberra Class LHD ships, allowing for a more prolonged revenue source for industry players. These delays, along with the Federal Government proposing to bring forward the replacement of two RAN supply ships, look set to help avoid a debilitating extended gap—

I repeat, 'a debilitating extended gap'—

in projects that has been projected for 2015-16. The estimated $36 billion Collins Class replacement submarine project is expected to begin construction in 2017-18, with a significant revenue stimulus projected upon commencement.

This was the expectation of the industry and those who analyse the industry and it clearly shows two things: the Labor government had a solid plan to bridge the 'valley of death', and the Abbott government has reneged on its commitments to the Australian people that there would be a sufficient flow of projects to ensure that the Australian shipbuilding work force and industry would be able to maintain its accumulated skills. Let me repeat this crucial phrase from IBIS assessment:

… to help avoid a debilitating extended gap in projects.

The key word here is 'debilitating' because, rather than continue with Labor's commitment to bridge that valley of death, what the Abbott government has done since its election is to ensure that there is indeed a 'debilitating extended gap.'

In April of this year I was fortunate enough to visit Adelaide to meet with some representatives of the Australian defence industry and in particular to visit the ASC shipyards. I was impressed by how South Australia has developed a world-class maritime industrial precinct. The infrastructure and critical mass of warship design, systems integration and construction skills provide the perfect foundation for a long-term sustainable maritime sector. Successive Australian governments have invested billions to consolidate and maintain the nation's sovereign shipbuilding capability.

While in Adelaide I was concerned to learn that a number of key defence industry players are already planning to shed jobs as of this month. With no other opportunities in shipbuilding available, we know that workers will move to other industries and their capability will be lost from shipbuilding for good.

The collapse of Australia's shipyards would have very serious consequences for the nation's economy. At risk is a highly skilled and capable workforce and the nation's indigenous shipbuilding capability. We have paid a heavy premium to establish a world-class shipbuilding industry in Australia. Now our shipbuilding industry needs security and consistency. The Abbott government's failure to provide this certainty, its broken promises, deferral of decisions and mixed messaging has plunged the industry into doubt and uncertainty.

The Abbott government must now accept that it has failed in its responsibilities and take immediate action to provide certainty to the Australian shipbuilding industry and to thousands of Australian workers by settling a short-, medium- and long-term program of government shipbuilding projects to ensure a balanced workflow and smooth delivery of key naval assets.

It is fundamental for the industry, for Australian jobs, for our capability and for our capacity for the future that we have an indigenous shipbuilding skillset here in this nation. I commend the motion to the House.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is little wonder that the member for Fremantle initiated this motion and then did a runner from the chamber, because it must be an extraordinary experience for her to have to put this motion up when set against the record of Labor's six years in charge of our defence and security. It is another example of Labor failing to match fine-sounding rhetoric with either strategy or resources when it comes to defence. And, as we know, strategy without resources is illusion.

The motion calls for a properly planned short-, medium- and long-term program for shipbuilding. Under Labor, there was a constantly changing plan, insufficient resources and a lack of direction to the defence industry—particularly our shipbuilding industry. Like so many other policy areas under Labor, there is a significant mess to fix up.

Consider submarines. We had the famous Rudd-pluck of 12 new submarines in the Defence white paper 2009. Even then, Labor sat on the plans for the rest of their time in government and did nothing. There was not one key milestone achieved in five years—most notably first-pass approval. The life of the Collins class is being extended, but now there is the potential that these submarines will reach the end of their service life and the new submarines will not be ready. That means a capability gap—two words that no capable government wants to hear.

As Kevin Rudd's Pompeii burned in the dying days of the election, he announced Labor would build two new supply ships in Australia. Again, there was no money allocated or plan provided as to how this logistically could be done. In the meantime, Navy has another capability gap looming as the two current ships are simply not up to the task.

You may recall that the biggest defence thought bubble of Emperor Rudd—again with no policy details or resources—was to move the entire fleet from Garden Island to Brisbane. Let us look at what Labor achieved in relation to defence and shipbuilding.

Under Labor, Defence was an ATM with $16 billion cut from Defence. Former Labor Minister for Defence Stephen Smith was very happy to ring the till whenever Penny Wong or Wayne Swan came asking for money for the budget. Defence spending under Labor fell to the lowest level since 1938. In financial year 2012-13, Labor made the largest single cut to the Defence budget since the end of the Korean conflict—a massive 10.5 per cent cut. The member for Fremantle talks about a sensitive defence industry ecosystem. On Labor's watch, the Australian defence industry shed more than 10 per cent of its workforce because of budget cuts and deferral. So please do not come in here, member for Canberra, lecturing us about how we need certainty in the Defence budget. As a result of Labor's careless disregard of defence funding, 119 projects were delayed, 43 projects were reduced and eight were cancelled altogether. That is the situation that we inherited.

Defence requires a 10 to 20 year time frame for procuring strategic capabilities. A 10 year defence capability plan was never produced by the Labor Party. They never did it, because of sheer embarrassment, and they wanted to conceal the billions that were being ripped out of the Defence budget. Mr Shorten and Senator Conroy consistently avoid answering questions on why Labor in government failed to make progress on the submarine project or the capability gap regarding Navy's replenishment ships.

Bill Shorten claims that, if the Labor Party were in government now, those ships would be built in Australia. The Labor Party had six years to make this decision and did nothing. The reality is that Labor needed to make decisions two years ago to avoid job losses in the shipbuilding industry. Navy's current replenishment ship, HMAS Success, is now in urgent need of replacement. HMAS Sirius provides only limited replenishment capability.

As a result of Labor's management of the Defence portfolio, defence is $30 billion short of being able to achieve the objectives outlined in the former government's fanciful 2009 white paper. We are fixing the mess. We are bringing forward work in the Future Frigates, making decisions on the follow-on for the Pacific Patrol Boat Program, announcing a replacement plan for Aurora Australis, putting the AWD project back on track and tackling the submarine mess in the white paper process. Spare us the lectures, member for Fremantle and those opposite, on what this government should be doing in this portfolio. As we have seen so often throughout our history, only the coalition takes defence and national security seriously. We have taken the first steps to ensure our Navy is properly equipped and to provide the Australian shipbuilding industry with some much-needed long-term strategic guidance.

Debate interrupted.