Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this censure motion because the statement of the Minister for Defence that he would not trust ASC to build a canoe undermines our national security. His statement yesterday in the Senate was outrageous; but, more importantly, the minister's failure to turn up in the Senate before the Prime Minister cut him loose or even after the Prime Minister cut him loose before the Senate rose last night showed contempt and that he was convinced that he was right. ASC workers—and we heard from just one of them yesterday—do a great job in keeping our submariners safe, and the minister's mocking criticism of these workers was appalling. But, to make matters worse, his criticism is wrong.

But let's go back in time just a little bit. Let's go back in time to those euphoric moments after the government won the last election. What do we know happened in those few days? In among the euphoria of those opposite former Prime Minister John Howard picked up the phone five times to the new Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott. John Howard called the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, five times, and what did he say in the course of that week? He said, 'Do not put Senator Johnston in charge of the Department of Defence, because he's not up to it.' That is what the former Prime Minister said to the current Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott. John Howard knew this was going to end in tears. He counselled. He tried to cajole. He tried to convince the current Prime Minister that Senator Johnston was not up to this job. If the current Prime Minister had just taken the wise advice of the former Prime Minister, we would not be in this sad, sorry situation having to censure a minister in this chamber.

As we saw last night, the Prime Minister was the first to highlight the problem that the defence minister had caused for the government and for himself. When the defence minister denigrated the workers who help keep our submariners safe, this is what Prime Minister had to say:

… the Australian Submarine Corporation plays a vital role supporting the Royal Australian Navy and our key naval capabilities.

It was clear when this statement did not include any support for the defence minister that it was over. It is clear that the Prime Minister has no confidence in the defence minister. That last night was a statement of no confidence by the current Prime Minister. But even that was not enough to flush out the defence minister to do the right thing at the earliest opportunity, as is required by this chamber, to come into the chamber and apologise.

The Prime Minister is not the only one in the Liberal Party who has lost confidence in the defence minister. His colleagues have condemned him. One senior Liberal is quoted in today's papers as calling the defence minister's remarks as 'some of the most stupid words I have ever heard from a senior minister'. Another called them 'breathtaking'. The education minister—a senior figure in the Liberal Party in South Australia, Mr Pyne—told Adelaide radio this morning 'the Minister for Defence should not have made that statement' and 'the Prime Minister has made it clear that he does not support that statement', so Mr Pyne cut him loose this morning. It is astounding that a senior cabinet minister would slap down a colleague in such strong terms. What is equally astounding is that it has taken the most senior member of the South Australian Liberal Party six months to grow a spine. For six months Mr Pyne has stood by silently watching as the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's office, the defence minister and the defence minister's office have slandered the ASC. They are serial offenders on the ASC and Mr Pyne has said nothing. I welcome the fact that Mr Pyne has grown a spine and is starting to defend his home state—

Senator Wong interjecting—

It has taken a long time, Senator Wong. It is astounding that a senior cabinet minister would slap down a colleague in such strong terms.

An opposition senator interjecting—

That is right; he might actually start a petition against Senator Johnston like he started a petition against Mr Turnbull and the rest of the cabinet about their decision on the ABC. We know the measure of outrage from Mr Pyne—it is to start a petition! Look on the websites now to see if he has started a petition about Senator Johnston.

What about the foreign minister, the one person in the government who has been unequivocal in her support, the one person who has kept him in his job for just over a year and who insisted, despite the advice of the former Prime Minister, on keeping Senator Johnston in this job? What did she have to say today? Did she offer a full-throated defence of her embattled colleague? Did she offer her full support for the defence minister and express her unshakable confidence in his ability to manage the nation's defence? No, colleagues, she did not. What did she say? She said she 'accepted his statement'. Oh, dear, that was it—she 'accepted his statement'. There was no: 'He has got my absolute loyalty. He is doing a great job. He'll be sitting in that seat right there in February when we reconvene.' Senator Birmingham went even a little further. He offered even less than that tepid statement from the foreign minister. He said that there is 'no excuse for denigration of the workforce or of the extensive capabilities that South Australia has'.

It is not just the opposition who think the minister has denigrated workers at the ASC who play a crucial role in our national security. We had Mr Briggs, another frontbench colleague of Senator Johnston's, quoted in the paper today as not supporting the minister's comments, labelling them 'wrong'. Another South Australian frontbencher grows a spine on behalf of the state of South Australia. So we have seen a pattern from yesterday through to today that the minister's frontbench colleagues have abandoned him, but what about the backbench? Senator Sean Edwards stated that he was 'in full support of the ASC and the people in it'. I note he did not say the same thing about the minister. The minister has no friends on his own backbench either.

I say to those senators, particularly the coalition senators from South Australia: support this censure motion; put your vote where your mouth is and stand up for South Australia in this vote. By their words they have abandoned the Minister for Defence, but today—right here, right now—is a chance for them to make it official. Stand up and be counted for your state. What about other South Australian Liberals? Are they standing up for Senator Johnston? Steven Marshall, the South Australian Liberal leader, said that Johnston's comments were a 'massive slap' in the face of workers in South Australia and described his position as 'untenable'.

What about the wider community? Is there any support for the minister's outrageous remarks there? The Small Business Association of Australia stated this morning that the minister's comments show:

… a disturbing lack of faith in the country's proven capabilities as a quality manufacturer of goods for the world. Frankly, it also shows a deep disregard for the thousands of skilled workers and businesses that ASC supports.

Professionals Australia, who represent the engineers who work at the ASC to keep Australia's submariners safe, put out a release today that had the headline 'The Prime Minister must intervene: Johnston must go'.

The defence minister's role is to ensure our national security. He should not be undermining our national security. That is what his comments did yesterday and that is why he deserves censure. The fact that he would not front up to the Senate yesterday and had to be dragged in screaming and kicking after the Prime Minister cut him loose last night and after his colleagues bucketed him in the morning papers and on morning radio and TV is why he deserves censure today.

But this is not the only time the minister has failed his duties. The minister at estimates earlier this year told the hearing that he did not go to a meeting of the National Security Committee of cabinet because he 'wasn't going to add much'. The Minister for Defence, while we have troops in the field in the Middle East, said he did not go to the National Security Committee of cabinet because he 'wasn't going to add much'. Well, it is hard to argue with him. I think it is pretty clear now that the minister is not the only person in cabinet who thinks he wouldn't add much.

But the minister's disdain for the Australian defence industry has been seen before when he held a tender project for Australia's new supply ships and specifically excluded Australian companies from tendering. He actually said no Australian company is allowed to tender for two supply vessels. Only a Spanish company and a South Korean company were allowed to tender. No Australian company was even allowed to put in a bid. He simply does not believe, he does not have a vision, for Australia's naval submarine and shipbuilding industry. He doesn't believe we can build things in Australia, and we saw that again yesterday. Rip the ugly mask off and there it was: the ugly view that he 'wouldn't trust them to build a canoe'. The truth was out there.

The minister has constantly and consistently exaggerated claims about the issues with the AWD project. This is probably his most heinous offence. To save his own sordid political skin he has been willing to constantly mislead this chamber about the issues around the AWD. He has constantly mislead the Australian public for short-term political gain. He has repeatedly claimed that the AWD project was operating at 150 man-hours per tonne. But BAE, the company actually building it, have told the Senate that they are currently beating their productivity targets and achieving 76 man-hours per tonne. Not 150 as the minister has constantly sought to say. The minister has zero credibility on that issue.

The minister is relying on a secret report that he refuses to release. It is called the Winter report. Instead, he talks down the Australian defence industry, cherry picking facts that he thinks support his case. But will he released the full report? Will he allow the Australian public, the Australian parliament, to look at it? No, he won't. You have only got to have growing suspicions about why. The minister has a terrible track record of talking the Australian industry down. He is a serial offender.

We have known a long time now that the Prime Minister was worried about this minister. He wasn't even allowed to employ the staff of his choice, with the PMO choosing staff for his office, including, ironically, a former ASC executive general manager who is currently his chief of staff. So we have the Prime Minister's office knowing that they had a pretty average weak link picking his chief of staff. We have a minister who says the ASC couldn't build a canoe, but one of their former executives is running his office. No wonder Liberal MPs are out in force today condemning the defence minister.

While we are talking about the treatment of the ASC by the minister, I would like to highlight the report in The West Australian today. It says that the defence minister apologised to ASC Chair Bruce Carter a fortnight ago for his relentless and baseless negativity towards the ASC. So this minister is a serial offender. It got so bad that two weeks ago he had dinner—as he has just admitted in the chamber—with the chair of the ASC and he apologised. What does the minister say today? I don't remember that. It just turned up in the newspaper saying he apologised, but he has no recollection of that. But since that apology in just two weeks this minister has personally abused on Adelaide radio the interim CEO of the ASC just last week and then yesterday, to cap it off, he mocked the entire ASC workforce. The minister promised to stop denigrating the ASC two weeks ago and twice in that two weeks he has broken his word to the chair of the ASC.

It is worth reflecting on the minister's personal bias against the ASC and its workers. The minister has consistently and repeatedly criticised Australia's capacity to build our future submarines. The minister has made claims about the strengths of the Japanese submarines, but they have been rejected by every submariner expert in the country. The Soryu is not the submarine for Australia. It does not have range, the endurance and the capability that meet Australia's unique needs, despite what Senator Johnston wants you to believe.

The minister has said that Australia doesn't need to run a competitive tender process. That's right: the minister says we don't need a competitive tender process; we don't need a funded project definition study to choose our next submarine. This was absolutely rejected by every single expert who turned up and bravely, in the face of the minister's abuse, scorn and denigration, told the truth to the Senate committee.

The minister has said there will be a capability gap—you heard him say it again today—if we build our next submarine in Australia. This again has been rejected not just by the experts but by the companies. Because they have seen that the fix is in for Japan, three companies have put unsolicited bids in because they can see the fix is in for Japanese submarines. So three companies have put in bids and they will say around $20 billion and we can avoid the capability gap.

But the minister does not want you to believe that evidence from the experts, from the companies. He wants you to ignore it all because he needs an excuse that he can hang his hat on when this government is exposed for lying to the Australian people when it said before the Australian election—and Senator Johnston said it on behalf of Tony Abbott—