Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor, of course, has announced through our shadow defence spokesman, Stephen Conroy, that we have no particular preference as to which company or country should be selected for the submarine contract, and that, of course, the process of building submarines in Australia is something that Labor has always supported, particularly in Adelaide. I note that Senator Conroy said that the DCNS company, which has been in good contact with the opposition, has made the point publicly that their preference is to build the first submarine in France. That has a number of implications. I do want to share my concern—and Senator Conroy expressed in a couple of media programs the concerns of the opposition—as to the treatment of Japan in the fiasco of the way the process of this has developed over the last two years. It was best put by Professor Paul Dibb. But I want to focus first on the something that happened in the last couple of days.

The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, was here—a most welcome guest to Australia. Unfortunately, he was here for only three hours. The previous Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, who just spoke, is getting a little ahead of his own party and the people of Australia on acquiring the submarine originally in Japan. It would be good practice for not just the French ambassador, the very capable Christophe Lecourtier, whom I know well, but also his equally capable predecessor Stephane Romatet, Mr Vall's adviser, to take the advice of the Friends of France and make sure that the opposition has a proper briefing from the French Prime Minister's office before the election takes place. After all, there may be a change of government. We are well briefed by DCNS.

Senator Conroy has indicated our support, but we do have concerns about how this issue has developed. As Professor Dibb, the very learned strategist here in Canberra, put it: in 2014 former Prime Minister Abbott had advised President Abe to build eight submarines in Japan and sail them ready-built to Australia; by 2015, Japan was faced with what we now know as 'a competitive evaluation process'; and then, on 4 August 2015, the previous foreign minister did a volte-face and announced an $89 billion local naval shipbuilding program and finally accepted Labor's views that the submarines should be built in Australia. Until that time, the member for Warringah and his ministers had proclaimed there was no strategic priority for local naval shipbuilding. Of course, Labor continues to support the defence white paper. As Professor Dibb said:

… wherever practicable and reasonably cost-effective, we should use—

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House adjourned at 20:00