Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, today I asked a question today about one of the Abbott government's many broken election promises that threatens jobs in South Australia, and that question of course was about budget cuts to the ABC. And now I am going to contribute to the debate about yet another broken election promise, and that is the failure of the government to honour its commitment to the people of South Australia to build the 12 Future Submarines in my state of South Australia.

I have spoken about this before—about how before the federal election the then shadow minister for defence and the Prime Minister wrapped themselves in the Australian flag and promised South Australians that the 12 new submarines would be built at the ASC in Adelaide; and how straight after the election the government started looking around to purchase those submarines from overseas. The government tried to paper over its broken promises by making outrageous claims about the capability of the workforce at the Australian Submarine Corporation. The government fudged the truth about the improving productivity about the AWD built at Submarine Corp. as well. The government tried to hoodwink the people of South Australia into believing that buying an off-the-shelf submarine from overseas would meet our capability and our security needs and would be cheaper than building in Australia, a claim that it made without any pretence of testing those premises by doing what should be done, and that is entering into a proper, competitive tendering process. Then, faced with a backlash from the people of South Australia, who do not like being lied to, and faced with a revolt within its own ranks of South Australian senators and members—