David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise on this occasion to speak to the important question of operational sovereignty. As the Abbott government seems poised to ignore expert advice and send the manufacture of our future submarine fleet overseas, the question of operational sovereignty should be front of mind. I rise to remind those opposite who have a short memory, of the vital impact that intellectual property disputes have had on Australian Defence Force capabilities in the past. Operational sovereignty and the ability to access the intellectual property associated with our defence capabilities is essential to ensure that the defence of our nation is not undermined by legal disputes, the inability to repair or upgrade our equipment, or that our forces are left vulnerable to capability gaps.

In his final speech to the House of Representatives, Kim Beazley revealed that the Australian Hornet fleet—fighter planes—was significantly undermined throughout the 1980s by this lack of operational sovereignty. He revealed that the radar system on the Hornets, provided by the United States, was set up in such a way that our pilots were unable to shoot down a whole range of potential threats in our region. The radar system was set up and designed for a European battle space and European threats, and as a consequence was not suitable for potential threats in our strategic regional environment. It could not identify a whole range of aircraft that were operating in this region. Kim Beazley went on to express the frustration he experienced in trying to gain access to the radar codes necessary to make our Hornet fleet fully operational. After five long years of frustrations, during which time the United States delayed sharing these codes with Australia, Australia was finally forced to spy on one of our closest allies simply to ensure that our defence forces could do their job.

The Collins class submarine also experienced difficulties in relation to intellectual property challenges in the 1990s. When, in 1998-99, cracking problems were found with the propeller system, Australia sought to send a number of boats to the United States for analysis and advice. However, the intellectual property for these propellers was held by the Swedish submarine design corporation Kockums. This led to years of legal disputes and they were only resolved in 2004. We should never let the defence of Australia be undermined in this way again.

In 2013, after this extensive negotiations, the former Labor government signed an agreement with Sweden on intellectual property rights for submarine design and technology. This agreement gave effect to Australia's right to use and disclose Swedish intellectual property rights for complex submarine design and technology, with implications not only for the maintenance of the current Collins class submarines but also for the proposed evolved Collins class. Those opposite will remember that even the bumbling Minister for Defence was forced to concede, upon taking office, that the performance of our Collins class submarines had be completely transformed by Labor's reinvestment in the sustainment of those boats and in particular the Coles review.

We have found through that hard work in the Collins class that the operational availability of those boats has now reached the point that on any one day there is a 90 per cent likelihood that we have two boats available and a 60 per cent chance that we have three boats available. That accomplishment is an important indicator about what Australia can achieve in this important space. But all that would be as for nothing if those critically important operational sovereignty questions had not been resolved.

The kangaroo and emu on our national crest speak to a country that is determined never to move backwards—to learn from the past and strive to always improve. Yet, in our most important defence procurement project in decades, the Abbott government seems determined to repeat those mistakes of the past—to undermine operational sovereignty and send the manufacture overseas. Everyone in this parliament is aware of the rumours that are abounding about the fact that the Future Submarine project might be sent to Japan to see their workforces and their shipyards. One key question that the government should look at as it breaks its promise to build an evolved Collins class in Adelaide, one key question that they cannot website of as they abandon the Australian shipbuilding industry, is: how, by building those boats in Japan, can they continue to preserve Australia's ownership over the IP—the IP that makes sure those boats are a sovereign capability of this nation, to make sure that it is the Australian government that has complete control over that strategic capability; and that we can sustain, maintain and upgrade those boats without the long and wretched history of legal disputes that has so often marred our procurement history?