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

It is a bleak day in Canberra today and it is a bleak day back at my electorate at the Williamstown shipyards in Melbourne's west. Since the election of the Abbott Government, the future of the Williamstown shipyards and the more than 1,000 jobs at the site has hung in the balance. When I was elected there were around 1,400 jobs at this shipyard—jobs of the future; jobs that even the Treasurer would call 'good' jobs; high-skilled jobs in an area of high demand in Australia. Indeed, if the shipyards could survive the immediate shortfall in work that they confronted, the so-called valley of death, there would be sufficient work for decades of work at the shipyards as we build the upcoming Future Frigate project—the ships we need as an island nation in an increasingly insecure region.

Instead of a comprehensive vision for a viable future for the shipbuilding industry in Australia, we have been again confronted by indecision and callousness from a government with complete disregard for Australian workers. Last month, BAE Systems announced that it needed to cut 80 jobs from the shipyard in Williamstown. This was not a surprise to anyone who had bothered to pay attention. In February 2014, BAE Systems Australia Chief Executive David Allott said that if more work was not provided in the short term:

… we will have to start laying people off again at the end of this quarter and close the shipyard at the end of 2015.

Since then, despite warnings from the industry, unions, workers and the company itself, nothing has been done to accelerate future projects or to put in place a structured Defence procurement strategy for the shipyards.

On Monday of this week, our worst fears were realised. BAE announced it would not be taking part in the government's request for tender for the replacement of the Pacific patrol boats contracts. BAE cited the government's lack of expediency as the biggest challenge facing the maritime business and stated that waiting until 2017 for the outcome of the tender process would leave the shipyards without work for 18 months. Without new contracts between now and the construction of the Pacific patrol boats, BAE Systems cannot continue to carry its current workforce. This government is killing yet another industry in my electorate.

The reality of this announcement means that shipyards which have been in operation in my electorate in some way since Ned Kelly was in a prison hulk on the bay will be closing under the Abbott government. Shortly after coming to power, the Abbott government allowed the car manufacturing industry to collapse and now 2,500 people at the Toyota plant in Altona will also lose their jobs. Now they are standing by idly while the shipbuilding industry also goes under.

In October last year, I stood in this chamber and congratulated shipbuilders on being awarded a contract to build three more blocks of the air warfare destroyer. At the time, I said that it was then the time to ensure that short-term work for the shipbuilders was secured and that a long-term plan for the future of the shipyards and Defence procurement in general was established. Unfortunately, the government failed to act at that time. Despite this, even the government's chief of the Commission of Audit made an impassioned plea to the government to build the next generation of naval ships and submarines in Australia. However, the government's negligence continues and we are going to lose the industry and the jobs that go with it.