David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Senator for his question because it is a very important one. Indeed, it is a very expensive question. We are not ruling in or ruling out anything here. As I said, when we opened the lid on the box entitled 'future submarines' there was nothing in it. There was nothing in the box. No proper detailed work had been done that would provide a feasible, cost-effective solution to the future submarine problem. That is what we inherited. I will not start on the air warfare destroyer, but in this particular space we have a tremendously difficult and complex requirement. What the Labor Party had done for six years was run around making a huge political splash while doing nothing but take money out of the program.

There are really only three places we can go for the design of a new submarine: the French, the Germans and the Japanese. We are engaging all of those—