Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am incredulous that the Labor opposition would want to give the coalition the opportunity to ventilate their failure when in government on issues associated with the shipbuilding industry, the submarines in Adelaide, the defence industry in general and the future submarines designed to meet Australia's unique needs for range, endurance and capability. I am reading now from what was the actual letter from Senator Moore to the President calling on the government to undertake an open and transparent tender process or a funded design study. This was from a government which demonstrated its gross failure in leadership, in management, in vision and in economic control of this nation.

Let me start by telling you what a mature, measured, rational coalition government will not do. The first thing we will not do is fail the Australian people by failing to provide adequate funding and adequate capability for Defence whether that is Defence personnel, whether it is materiel or whether it is other assets in the defence sector. Secondly, this government will not needlessly waste taxpayers' money on poorly conceived, poorly designed, poorly executed Defence projects and then desert the participants. Thirdly, this government will not, to the South Australian shipbuilding workers or the industry, fail to plan, to invest, to communicate and to demonstrate a viable direction for Defence acquisition and for the maintenance and support of Defence assets, many of which are developed in South Australia.

This mature, sensible government will not leave a future government, a future parliament or the people of Australia with a shipwreck of an economy. That of course was visited upon the people of Australia by the outgoing Labor government in 2013. That government inherited no net debt and actually had some $20 billion in cash, earning interest. Only now of course we see that we are paying $1 billion every 30 days on interest. That is not repaying this Labor debt. We are paying $33 million a day interest and we are borrowing from overseas to do it. Finally, this government will not leave a Defence Force, which is now so under resourced, overstretched and exhausted and up until September 2013 with the lowest morale it had had in many years as a result of that Labor government.

Let me, if I may, go back to a statement by the then opposition leader, Mr Kevin Rudd, on 31 October 2007. I quote from his statement:

A Labor government would … ensure the submarines were built by ASC at its Port Adelaide site, with construction to begin in about 2017.

He went on to say—

Senator Cameron interjecting—