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

I rise on the motion to take note of answers by Senator Johnston to questions by Senator Wong and Senator Conroy. It was really pleasing that Senator Birmingham broke his self-imposed exile and contributed to the debate. He has been conspicuously absent in this debate right throughout. But, as normal, his pedigree came to the fore. If you check his resume, Mr Deputy President—I am not sure that you have ever bothered to do that—you will find that his experience in life is restricted to political office as an adviser and the like. Real-world experience is not all that prominent on his resume, so he did what he was expected to do as a professional politician: he put his hand in his pocket, went on the stump, prevaricated and introduced other topics of no relevance to the critical matter at hand.

You cannot move in South Australia without realising this is a widely-held and deeply-felt subject. Of the number of telephone calls over a few short weeks from constituents to my office—I stress these were not from Labor held constituencies—70.5 per cent indicated that they wanted the submarines built in South Australia; 2.1 per cent indicated that they did not want the submarines built in South Australia; and 27.4 per cent had no view. This is a widely-held and deeply-felt important issue. As Senator Wong correctly put it, the minister has ignored the experts, is misleading the public and is breaking a promise.

The first point of misleading was when he introduced the AWD project, which he said was several hundred million dollars over budget, but he ignored the fact that the Audit Office produced a very comprehensive report. Part of the reason for those overruns was:

Immaturity in the detailed design documentation provided by Navantia, predominantly associated with drawing errors or omissions, contract amendments and late Vendor Furnished Information.

This resulted in 'an average of 2.75 revisions per drawing' and led to:

… costly and out-of-sequence rework in cases where construction work already undertaken no longer matched the design.

So I will not cop the workforce there being denigrated by anyone—particularly not this minister saying that they lack productivity. When asked, the Defence Materiel Organisation CEO said that there is 'no lack of productivity' from the workforce. It is 'costly rework' that is driving this loss of productivity on the project. That does not fall within the remit of the people who turn up there every day to do their job—and do it in a damn good way and in a very efficient manner.

As I said, Senator Birmingham has come out of his self-imposed exile, but let us look at what has happened with the other Liberal senators in the recent weeks. One South Australian senator broke ranks. My good colleague Senator Edwards, deputy chair of the economics committee, has said the project should go out to open tender. Locking Australia out of the process was like 'not inviting an uncle to a wedding'. Senator Edwards has stepped up and is backing submarines in South Australia. Senator Fawcett has been eminently on the record right throughout this and has had to correct an erroneous report of his position, but he has been, very clearly, on the case and on the job in South Australia. Now I go to Senator Ruston. Senator Anne Ruston said that the government should consider the evidence from expert witnesses. That is not criticism from Senator Wong or Senator Conroy. That is criticism from Senator Ruston. The government should consider the evidence of expert witnesses. It is a bit of free advice to her own government. Then we have the member for Hindmarsh, a Liberal MP, lobbying the PM for the local submarines bill. It is very clear that widely-held, deeply-felt community sentiment in South Australia says: 'Don't break a promise, build the subs here, make them in Australia, manufacture them in Adelaide and keep people in work.' It is a very clear sentiment that I endorse.

Question agreed to.