Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Abbott Government's failure to honour its election promises to support Australia's Defence manufacturing industry by excluding Australian ship building companies from tendering for two new Naval supply ships and refusing to commit to building 12 Future Submarines in Australia; and

The need for the Government to keep its election promises and take action to avoid sending thousands of Australian ship building jobs overseas and putting at risk Australia's strategically vital ship building industry.

I rise to support this motion because this government is putting the Australian shipbuilding industry in peril. Australia's shipbuilding industry is a vital strategic asset for our Navy and for our country. The shipyards in Newcastle, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth form the backbone of this vital industry. It would be grossly irresponsible for any government to take decisions that put these vital assets at risk, but that is what this government is doing.

The Abbott government have excluded Australian companies from tendering to build two replacement supply ships for the Royal Australian Navy. They have excluded them from bidding at all. They claim that Australia cannot do it. The minister claims that our shipyards and their workers are not good enough. It is clear that the government is no longer happy just talking down our economy; they are now talking down entire industries. At the last election Labor proposed, at a minimum, a hybrid build—and potentially a complete local build—of these two important vessels as a key plank in our plan to bridge what has come to be referred to as the 'valley of death'. We knew from advice that we received in government that this was feasible and that work could have begun in the first quarter of 2016 if the government had followed Labor's plan. But rather than acting quickly after coming to government, those opposite have sat on their hands for nine months. We announced a plan in the election campaign that you could have started after the election. But no. Nine months later, we had the minister pretending to the Australian public that he had a plan. In March, this minister boasted on the front page of The Australian Financial Review that he had a plan; he had a plan to fix the valley of death. That is what he said on the front page of the Fin Review in March of this year. Minister, you do not fix the valley of death by sending Australian shipbuilding jobs to Spain or South Korea. But that is what this minister announced a week ago. No Australian companies are allowed to bid; we are building the ships in Spain or South Korea. The minister even went so far as to declare this an 'exciting' announcement. He was excited for shipbuilding workers in South Korea and Spain but he just could not give a proverbial about Australian shipworkers.

Let me tell you, Mr Deputy President: I do not think that shipping high-skilled jobs to other countries is exciting. The Labor Party does not think it is exciting, and the Australian public do not think it is exciting. This is not just a bad decision; it is another Abbott government broken promise. Let me recap the history on this. Before the election, on 9 August 2013, now Minister Johnston went up to Newcastle in election campaign mode, and he went on the local ABC radio station in Newcastle and said:

I get really fired up when I find us giving away our manufacturing base in the Defence space to foreign manufacturers, it's just not on.

Yet here he is, nine months later, doing the exact opposite. He is excluding Australian businesses from tendering for a major shipbuilding project. He says one thing before the election, misleads voters in Newcastle and all around the country. This is just another Liberal lie. It is another broken promise.

I would love to say that that was the only lie the Liberal government has been engaged in recently. But, just before the election, the Liberals made another promise. On 8 May 2013, Senator Johnston went to ASC shipbuilding yard in South Australia—and I am willing to bet that Senator Birmingham was standing next to him when he said the following regarding Australia's future submarine project: 'We will deliver these submarines from right here at the ASC in South Australia. The coalition today is committed to building 12 new submarines here in Adelaide.' That is what he said—I am willing bet he was standing next to a couple of those senators opposite—in May last year. And yet yesterday, when I asked him to repeat that promise in this chamber, he ran and hid. He refused to do it. He refused to commit to 12 submarines, and he has refused to commit to having them built in Australia. That is another Liberal lie; another Liberal broken promise.

Australia needs a domestic shipbuilding industry. Over the next 30 years the Australian Defence Force needs 48 ships at a cost of $60 billion to $80 billion, with an additional $180 billion to $200 billion for the through-life support that these ships will need. Among the vessels we need are submarines, frigates, patrol boats, mine hunters, survey vessels and heavy landing craft—and do not tell me we cannot build these in Australia. The Anzac frigate project was an outstanding success—built in Australia with world-class ships delivered to the Royal Australian Navy. At present we have three air warfare destroyers and two landing helicopter docks under construction. These are the most sophisticated ships built or assembled in Australia.