Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and acknowledge his distinguished service. When the Albanese government came to power, we inherited from the Liberals the oldest surface fleet that the Royal Australian Navy had operated since the end of the Second World War. HMAS Anzac was on her last legs, which meant that we had 11, coming down to 10, surface combatants without the prospect of a new surface combatant entering our fleet until 2034. That was the first of the Hunter class frigates. When the Liberals announced the Hunter class frigate program, they said that steel would start being cut in 2020, but by the time of the last election in 2022 no steel had been cut, the program was running years over time and billions of dollars over budget. There were six—really, seven—different defence ministers rotating through that chair, the last of which was the Leader of the Opposition. This stands as one of the worst examples of the lost defence decade under the Liberals and the shambolic way the Liberals managed Australia's national security.

In coming to office, we commissioned a review of the surface fleet, and in February this year we announced a new fleet for our Navy which would, in time, see a doubling of our surface combatants and, importantly, the first of those new surface combatants coming into service this decade, in the 2020s. Unlike the plan of those opposite, this plan was fully funded, and that is critical because it gives Navy the predictability to allow us to go out there and build those ships.

Last week, we took a giant step forward in that regard. On Thursday, we signed contracts for the first three of the six Hunter class frigates which will form a part of the Royal Australian Navy, and on Friday we cut the first piece of steel under that contract which will form a part of HMAS Hunter. It's a huge moment. HMAS Hunter will be an exquisite capability—the most potent undersea warfare frigate in the world. This program will employ 2½ thousand Australians and, in combination with the building of our future submarines and extending the life of our Collins class submarines, it will see the Osborne Naval Shipyard become home to 7,000 workers engaged in high-tech manufacturing.

The contrast with the Liberal circus could not be more stark because the Liberals were a defence disaster. The Albanese government is doing everything it takes to keep Australians safe.