Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution in support of this resolution. I have just a couple of points very early on. Senator Macdonald, in an earlier contribution today, complained about the lack of honesty and the fact that the legislation did not make a lot of sense. I think that could be appropriately applied in this case to the contribution from Senator Birmingham. The facts are that successive governments have accepted that the building of these ships would involve a premium over and above building them overseas. It has been the decision of successive governments to build shipbuilding capability in Australia—to get the people, train them, get the experience up and build a decent product.

In an earlier contribution on this matter, I raised an issue of the Australian National Audit Office report on this capability. I also raised at the same time the fact that the embargoed report had been written about profusely in The Financial Review the night before, and I inquired as to whether Senator Johnston or his office had anything to do with that. No answer was forthcoming on that. But it is really interesting. The simple facts are that there is an early release of an audit report and a dark cloud of 'blow-out in productivity', and all of a sudden the whole world thinks that the workers are not going to work on time; the workers are not doing the work on time; the workers must be badly trained; or there is some other inherent lack of capacity in the workforce. But when you actually read the audit report you realise that nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. The workers who are doing these jobs—these highly paid, high-skilled, extremely worthy jobs—are not at fault in any of this.

The minister's office is not leaping to the front saying what the core of the problems of productivity in this sector is. But, if you just glance at the audit report, you see that the total number of construction drawings for the Hobart class DDG was 2,132, and the total number of revisions issued at October 2013 was 6,071. In this argument, what has been missed is that no-one is seeking to address the core problem. There have been multiple revisions of the plans after the work has been done, and in some cases—about 20 per cent of the time—the work has had to be redone. That has got this aura of: 'We can't do it. Australians can't make it.' Well, we can make it. Very clearly we can make it. And, if you are doing something two or three times and you only have a 20 per cent loss of productivity, perhaps that is not a bad effort.

As Senator Xenophon has rightly said, we are not even getting a chance to tender, despite all of the lessons that have been learnt in this process; despite successive governments, going back a long way, backing this industry to give us the capability, to give us the skills; and despite a very complete audit report highlighting the deficiencies. I accept that design is part of productivity. I hasten to say that you cannot label a workforce as unproductive when it has to do something twice or three times because there has been a change in design from the Spanish Navantia corporation. When are we going to get down to brass tacks here?

Senator Birmingham will go over, ad infinitum, five or six years of Labor's allegedly poor decision making. That is not relevant, nine months after the coalition winning government, to those people who work in this industry. It is not relevant to those companies seeking to make an investment in this industry. What is relevant is a government that actually allows the industry to compete. Why would they not be allowed to competitively tender? They may have the answers to some of these problems that have come up in the Australian National Audit Office report. They may well have learnt very good and valuable lessons, so those mistakes will not be replicated in the next round. But they will not be given a chance.

What is it about this government that it so dislikes manufacturing? What is it about Senator Birmingham in particular, who shows no empathy for the workers in his own state? I think one of the things you need to do in the Senate is bring your home game. You have to bat for your state. You have to bat for South Australian jobs—or, in Senator Carr's case, Victorian jobs—and, as a senator, for all Australian jobs.

But Senator Birmingham comes in and gives us about seven minutes of his time, not talking about the way to fix the problem, the way to go forward and actually get good Australian well-paid jobs and successful companies into our economy to build and grow our own home states. He talks about the alleged failings of the previous government, and then he spends a little bit of time saying, 'We have to make some tough decisions.'

You have to make tough decisions, but at least tell the truth. Are you changing the philosophy that successive governments in this country have had about building Defence capability, about building Defence warships, about building submarines? Are you throwing all of that out? Is the work of your predecessors, the contribution of those South Australian senators of the conservative variety who really did get this, who really did want to make South Australia the Defence state, all to be thrown out the window, Senator Birmingham, because you need to make a hard decision?

All government decisions are essentially hard decisions, but they should be made in the clear, cold, hard light of day, taking into account all of the things that need to be addressed. And very clearly what needs to be addressed in this arena is this audit report. It would seem to me that it is heavily weighted to those a bit further up the food chain. The problems are coming from people a little bit further up the food chain than the actual workers in South Australia, who go to work, do a damned good job, really take pride in their work, want their company to be successful, want their workplace to grow and want to achieve an outstanding result for Australia's Defence forces. The disgraceful fact that they are not even allowed to tender for additional work is almost beyond the pale.

Not to give Senator Xenophon too much credit, but he probably is a little bit on the mark here. Have they such a hatred for manufacturing that they told GMH to go away and now they are not allowing good Australian workers, good Australian companies, spread right across this country to even tender. They are not even allowed to put in a price. These are people who have actually done good work, who have learnt valuable lessons, who have only one motivation and that is to be successful at the job they are doing, in a successful company, getting a successful result for the defence industry.

This government should be ashamed of itself. It will not even allow people to tender in those circumstances. The workers in these places will hear Senator Birmingham's contribution, but they will treat it as nothing more than a speech about partisan politics. It does not address the issue. Look at the audit report, fix the problems and build these ships here.