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

That is a very good question. I have an enormous amount of respect for Dr White. Indeed, we used him to do a report into the mess that was left to us by the former Labor government with respect to frigates being several hundred million dollars over budget and several years late. The only real authority in Australia as to where we are at with submarines is inside the defence department. If the Labor Party had done its homework and read and studied what Admiral Moffitt, who was in charge of the program, has been saying for the last several years, it would know the timing is crystal clear. For six years, Labor had done nothing. Indeed, I said this on 8 May 2013. I said this in a number of statements. I said that if the two options left behind by Minister Smith, the son of Collins option and the bespoke Australian design, were real and not fantasies then we would accept the minister at his word. But I have a copy of Labor's submarine design here.