Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How does the AUKUS agreement, announced last week by the government, invest in our capability and in our relationships?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dunkley for her question and for her commitment to making Australia a safer and more resilient country. We as a government are investing in our capability and we're also investing in our relationships. This represents the single biggest investment in Australia's defence capability in our history and the single biggest leap in terms of capacity and use of technology in our history as well. Importantly, this will be an Australian sovereign capability. Once the Australian flag appears on a plane, a piece of equipment, a ship, a submarine then it is controlled by Australia, and it operates at the direction of the government of Australia. In this case, what we'll be working towards is the building of nuclear powered submarines in Adelaide that will be built by Australian workers with Australian products, having Australian skills and producing, of course, 20,000 direct Australian jobs as well as having a massive multiplier effect on our capacity to have advanced manufacturing in this country.

There is a cost to any major project such as this. We have put out the estimated costings there for all to see in the interests of transparency. What that represents going forward is about 0.15 per cent of GDP. The defence budget will be at least two per cent of GDP. What I have said—I said it at the Lowy Institute before the last election—and I continue to say, I expect that our defence budget in the future will actually grow higher than two per cent, but it certainly won't be lower.

Therefore, this particular project will represent under 10 per cent of our defence budget. So when we sat around the NSC and other bodies and worked through the question, whether this is the right thing to do, you have to come to the assessment based upon asking 'Does this increase the capability of our defence by more than 10 per cent?' The answer to that is overwhelmingly yes. They will stay under water for longer; they're faster; they don't need to snort—come up—as often. This unlocks a set of transformative opportunities. It will shape and strengthen and grow Australia's economy for decades into the future.