Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

The sheer front, the sheer hypocrisy of those opposite seems to know absolutely no bounds. Senator Conroy came in here hectoring and lecturing, and I am sure Senator Carr in Senator Gallacher will do likewise. We heard the hysteria of Senator Wong yesterday on this topic. For six long years the government of those opposite did nothing to help naval capability in this country and did nothing to actually sign any contracts or develop any further delivery of work to Australia's shipbuilding industry. We had nothing from the government of those opposite and now they come in here and talk about what has happened in nine months.

The so-called 'valley of death' that may exist for Australia's defence industries is entirely the making of six years of failure by the Labor government to make a decision, sign a contract or fund a project. It was entirely the fault of those opposite. If you listened carefully to Senator Conroy's nine minutes, you would have realised that, in that entire nine-minute period, never was he able to talk about a project that was initiated, started and with work commenced by the Labor government. I issue this challenge to further Labor speakers in this debate: tell us, in the naval shipbuilding space, of the projects that your government initiated, funded and contracted. Name one. Please, during this debate tell us where you started work like the Howard government started the work on the AWDs. Those opposite were too damn busy defending each other from their own attacks within to worry about the successful and effective defence of the country.

Let us look back at the record of those opposite because, when Senator Conroy wants to talk about promises, I remember promises. I remember 19 August 2007 when then opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, went to Adelaide and promised that there would be submarines built by the ASC with construction to begin in 2017. In 2007, he said:

Starting the process this year will guarantee continuity of work for South Australia's defence industry and those employed in the sector. It will also provide a big boost to South Australia's growing knowledge and skills base and its reputation as the defence state.

Well, I am sure if the project had started after the election of Mr Rudd as Prime Minister in 2007, those words may have come true. But, of course, it did not start then, did it? Far from it. Another two years it took until 2009. What did we then get? We got a promise to a commitment for 12 submarines. That was it, no funding, no detail, no contract. After two years of hard work by that Labor administration, they had gone from Rudd's election promise where work was going to start in 2007 to two years later in 2009 and they could now say it would be 12 submarines. That was all. And there was a promise that there would be initial operating capacity by 2025-26.

Then what happened? Another few years rolled forward until last year, 2013, when, because of the complete inactivity of the government to fund any work on developing those submarines, they had to push back the date for the operating capability by another four years. So the 2007 promise saw nothing happen until 2009 and then saw nothing happen until 2013 and then again got delayed further. Of course, nothing ever happened. What the Labor Party did for naval shipbuilding in this country during six long years was zero, zip, nada, nothing at all. The challenge remains to those opposite to come in here and demonstrate that they delivered anything.

Senator Conroy had the gall to come in here and say that at the last election Labor proposed something. Well, for God's sake. At the 2010 election Labor proposed something and did not deliver; at the 2013 election Labor proposed something and did not deliver. Why on earth should we believe that they would have delivered had they actually been re-elected in 2013? Because for the previous six years, they had delivered absolutely nothing at all. In fact, in the defence space, what had they done? They cut $16 billion from the defence budget. The share of GDP spent on defence fell to 1.56 per cent—its lowest level since 1938. They want to talk about investing in defence industries but, when they were in government, they drove investment in defence down to its lowest share of our economy since 1938.

In 2012-13 the government of those opposite made the single largest cut to the defence budget since the end of the Korean conflict. They cut 10½ per cent from the defence budget. There is little wonder that they were not able to make any decisions to fund shipbuilding, because they were cutting the budget and cutting the funding that you need to commit to make those decisions. They had no budget there to be able to make decisions or commitments. As a result of their disregard, it was not just the submarine projects that suffered the fate of deferral and inaction and an inability to be delivered. Overall some 119 different Defence projects were delayed, 43 different Defence projects were reduced and eight were cancelled altogether.

This is the chaos that Senator Johnston as Defence minister in our government inherited in the Defence portfolio. It is the utter chaos and mismanagement that saw funds bled from Defence, projects deferred—and continued announcements, of course. The announcements never stopped. They were always very good at going out and doing press conferences and making announcements. They could just never deliver on them at all.

We are getting on with two tasks here. Firstly, we are delivering for Defence—for their capabilities and what they need for their naval capabilities in the future. Secondly, we are trying to put naval shipbuilding in Australia back on a sustainable footing that we hope and trust can be a sustainable footing for the long term, not just the type of ad hoc approach that reflects the decision making of those opposite.

In terms of delivering for Defence, and for the Navy in particular, that has required us to make some difficult decisions. The truth is that the Navy needs new supply vessels, they need them urgently and they are of a size and scale that cannot be cost-competitively delivered in Australia. The estimates are that for the two vessels that the minister announced we would procure—decisions that could have been taken by those opposite but were not—it would have cost an additional $300 million to $500 million for just those two vessels alone to be built in Australia.

Knowing that that is a difficult decision—and I would rather, of course, have seen them built in Australia if it were cost competitive to do so—we have committed to try to get the Australian naval shipbuilding industry back in a competitive position so that the overwhelming majority of future work may be bid for and hopefully won by Australia's naval shipbuilding industry. That is why some $78.2 million has been brought forward to begin preliminary engineering and design work so that future frigates may be built in Australia. It is why we have given a commitment to construct more than 20 Pacific Patrol Boats here in Australia. It is why we are working hard to get the AWD contract under control so that ultimately the delivery of those air warfare destroyers will be a success and will be something that the ASC and the other partners in that contract can use to earn support for winning future contracts and ensuring they get work in Adelaide and elsewhere around Australia.

So, as a government, we are working to a very clear plan. Unlike those opposite, we have made decisions. Unlike those opposite, we have funded those decisions. Unlike those opposite, we will enter into contracts to deliver upon those decisions. Unlike those opposite, those working in the naval shipbuilding industries and those companies involved in those industries can see a clear plan and a clear pathway from this government, which is working through towards the delivery next year of our naval capability plan as part of the new Defence white paper that will give certainty for the long haul. They can have certainty that when this government says it will do something and says it will build something, we will follow through and we will deliver for our Defence industries, unlike the six years of malaise they suffered previously.