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

This is a very complex program, a complex project, that has fallen completely into disrepair over the last six years. It went before NSC in 2008. There were promises given. The former Labor government promised in 2007 that there would be, in fact, a first pass for 12 submarines in 2011. Where does that failure leave us? Prime Minister Gillard in 2012 said there would be a first pass in 2013-14. Guess what—nothing happened. Labor promised a decision for a land based test site for submarine propulsion by 2012. Guess what—nothing happened. The fact is that, for the last six years, your state, which prides itself as being a defence state, has sat on its hands, grizzling and whingeing about what this government might do, but has said nothing for six years. When you were in government you said nothing about submarines. Indeed, all of your South Australian colleagues just sat there. All you could mouth was: '12 submarines for Adelaide.' Walt Disney himself could not have come up with a submarine to fit the bill that you designed in 2009. When I was down in Adelaide talking about what we wanted to do with submarines, I said—and if you want to read it, you can see it—'Unless the options put on the table by the then minister were fantasy, we would go with the work that I perceived that he had honestly done'. He had done no work, and you shut up about it. You never said a word. (Time expired)