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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) and the Minister for Defence (Senator Johnston) to questions without notice asked by Senator Collins and Senator Gallacher today relating to fuel excise and defence procurement.

I probably have a couple of laps under the belt—there are a few miles on the speedo and I am not sure that I was dreadfully hurt by Senator Johnston's suggestion that my question was incongruous and stupid. But I do want to press home to this minister that the good, loyal citizens of South Australia, the good, hardworking workforce at the Australian Submarine Corp and all those involved in defence activity and manufacturing do not think that these questions are incongruous and stupid. They, their employers and the small businesses that rely heavily on that manufacturing activity in South Australia clearly do not think it is incongruous and stupid to ask whether they will be prevented from bidding on a vital national defence project. Thousands and thousands of South Australians have indicated a very, very strong position in respect of all defence activity in South Australia, in particular the building of the next-generation submarines.

The minister also failed to confirm—forgetting South Australia for a minute, Senators—that Australian companies will not be given the opportunity to bid. So it has gone from ASC in Adelaide to all Australian companies not being invited, or he will not confirm at this stage that they will not be invited, to bid. I do not think that such questions are incongruous and stupid; I certainly do not think that at all. He failed to commit that the ASC will even be invited to bid. Despite billions of dollars of taxpayers' investment in that activity throughout the whole Collins build and the sustained effort of keeping those submarines going until 2020, he will not even confirm that they will be able to get into the process. But he does say there will be a two-pass process that everybody will be happy with. If you go to a place and say, 'This is our promise: we will build the submarines right here at ASC in Adelaide,' and then shift ground, prevaricate and change your stance to being unable to confirm that ASC will be able to bid for a vital national defence project and unable to confirm that Australian companies will be invited to bid for the Future Submarine Project, you really are on very, very soft ground.

It is very clear that all those people on the other side who will face the electoral test at the next election have shifted their ground. Matt Williams, the member for Hindmarsh, wrote to the Prime Minister imploring him to change tack and commit to this. Senator Ruston, Senator Edwards and Senator Fawcett are 1, 2 and 3 on the Senate ticket. We do not know in which order, but we all know that they have distanced themselves from this broken promise.