Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Only 30 minutes north of Canning lies what will be Australia's biggest national endeavour this century. It will be the home of AUKUS, HMAS Stirling, otherwise known as Submarine Rotational Force-West, or SRF-West. This is our first AUKUS milestone, where we will host US and UK nuclear powered submarines alongside HMAS Stirling from 2027. As I have said many times before, SRF-West is simply too important to fail.

A few weeks ago I visited HMAS Stirling. While there's still a long road ahead before 2027, I feel confident that our Defence officials recognise the importance of this first step and are getting on with the job of getting us ready. The Australian Submarine Agency is uplifting the base. They are upgrading facilities, building new housing for personnel, securing the power supply and doing everything else that needs to be done to move HMAS Stirling from a conventional base to a nuclear base.

Our people understand the significance of AUKUS within defence. The WA state government, concerningly, does not. Rockingham is in the middle of a housing and infrastructure crisis. We have a crisis of supply in housing, and we have an infrastructure deficit with our roads. This is leaving people without houses, and we are seeing massive congestion on our roads around the Rockingham precinct. In May locals expressed their concerns about traffic on Parkin Street. In March a US official expressed concerns about WA's readiness. The defence minister himself has signalled concerns. He said this month that there are a whole range of issues that have to be worked through and that the WA government would need to do more.

Despite calls for action, WA Labor is absent when it comes to AUKUS. Yet, despite that, they are critical to its success. They are failing to acknowledge or resolve the challenges that we face, and that's why I last week called on Premier Roger Cook to appoint a full-time minister for AUKUS. There must be someone sitting at the state cabinet table driving the machinery of government to focus on the infrastructure projects that need to be delivered and on fixing congestion, building homes and coordinating all the stakeholders across the state that are needed to deliver AUKUS in a timely manner. In fact, Premier Cook should be following the example of South Australian Premier Malinauskas to drive AUKUS and build social licence with Western Australians. I think Malinauskas is a good case study for Premier Cook. Instead, WA Labor is falling behind and failing to grasp this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I've long voiced my concerns about WA Labor's preparedness for SRF-West. I've met with local councils and stakeholders, and they all tell me the same thing: there is no leadership from the WA state government. So, once again, I call upon Premier Roger Cook to appoint a full-time AUKUS minister within his state cabinet, fully empowered to drive all the machinery of government required to deliver AUKUS in a timely manner.