Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry. Will the minister update the House on today's announcement in relation to the ASC? How will the restructure of the ASC enable the government to deliver on its promise to implement a continuous naval shipbuilding plan which will be a creator of jobs and will grow the economy into the future?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question, and I can tell her that today's announcement about the future of the Australian Submarine Corporation is another critical step in the establishment of our naval shipbuilding plan into the future. Today we have announced that the ASC will be structurally separated into three business entities: a shipbuilding business, which will be conducted at Osborne south in South Australia; a submarine maintenance and sustainment business, which will continue to be operated at Osborne north and at Henderson in Western Australia; and an infrastructure business which will own the infrastructure at Osborne. I intend to enter into negotiations with the South Australian government in order to take over their part of that, the Common User Facility, so that the Commonwealth owns all of the infrastructure at Osborne, south and north, to prepare for our submarine and our naval shipbuilding industries into the future.

What this will create in South Australia, and for Australia, is the most modern and one of the busiest platform shipbuilding businesses that is conducted in the world right now, at Osborne south. At Osborne north will be one of the most modern and busiest submarine businesses in the world. This is creating jobs, creating growth, creating investment and providing the high-tech advanced manufacturing jobs of the future that are part of such an important project. We will need to build significant infrastructure at Osborne in South Australia and at Henderson in Western Australia. That infrastructure will start being built next year. That will also be creating jobs. So under this government, because of decisions that we have made in the last three years, we will see up to 5,000 jobs in the naval shipbuilding businesses in South Australia. That is a critical element of investment in our economy.

Once again, we are keeping the commitments that we made at the election as part of our national economic plan. Part of it was innovation; part of it was defence industry. Unlike the previous government, which in six years made not one decision to build a vessel in Australia, we have made the decisions that will allow 54 vessels to be built in this country. Today's announcement is another part of the foundation stone that we have setting in place since the election. We have signed the contract with DC&S for the design and mobilisation of the submarines. We have announced today the structural separation of the ASC. We have chosen Lockheed Martin as the combat system integrator for the submarines, and we are promoting Australian defence industry exports in Washington and elsewhere—whether it is the Joint Strike Fighter program or naval shipbuilding. We are getting on with the job, in stark contrast to what we saw under the Labor Party.