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

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Why did Labor sign up to the AUKUS nuclear submarine program when Australia had no pre-existing Australian nuclear submarine industry?

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

I really do appreciate the question from the shadow minister, but it does worry me that the shadow defence minister of this country doesn't understand submarines 101. But, then again, that perhaps should not be a surprise, because those opposite are the ones who gave us a 10-year capability gap in our submarines, as they were in and out of a deal with Japan and then in and out of a deal with France. It was not until the ninth year of their government that they actually came up with a solution to the successor of our Collins class submarines, and they really only succeeded in that solution by virtue of the fact that were elected out of office a few months later and Labor have been the ones who have been able to deliver it.

The answer to the shadow minister's question goes directly to the question of our nation's submarine capability.

We know that, in order to have an enduring, long-range submarine capability into the 2030s and 2040s which matches the capability that we in fact had in the 2000s with the introduction of the Collins class, we have to move from a diesel electric powered submarine to a nuclear powered submarine, and we make no apology for that.

What is astonishing is that the brains trust over here somehow believe that eight nuclear reactors which will each power a single machine is somehow the basis for them grounding a policy to establish a civil nuclear industry in this country which is intended to power cities and states and, in fact, the entire nation. It is the equivalent of saying that there is a similarity between a coal-fired power station and a lawnmower because they both burn hydrocarbons. It says everything about how they do not understand what is at stake here.

The simple fact is this: if this country moves down the path of a civil nuclear industry under this Leader of the Opposition, this country will be embracing the most expensive form of energy and the most expensive form of electricity, and no amount of these questions can escape that fact. An extra $1,200 per household; that's what we're talking about. We're talking about in 20 years' time, and in 20 years' time we will only be talking about four per cent of the electricity grid. That's what their policy amounts to. That's why it's a dog of a policy.