Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

for six years, the totality of that Labor-Green government, nothing was done to plan for the need for a new Australian submarine capacity. That is something that Senator Johnston now has to pick up, six or seven years after the event, and he had a blank sheet of paper to start off with. That is the Labor Party legacy. Is Senator Johnston frustrated because of Labor's criminal neglect of this very important capacity? Of course he is. And, as the man he is, he stood up and recognised his overstatement—unlike Senator Conroy. Wouldn't it be refreshing if he were to get up and, in his first comment in this debate, say, 'I unreservedly apologise to Lieutenant General Campbell'? Wouldn't that be interesting? And that will be the test of character on which the Australian people can decide between the honourable Senator Johnston, the Minister for Defence, who is willing to say it as it is about himself, in juxtaposition to that which the opposition provides us in Senator Conroy.

The submarine capacity in this nation is vitally important. Labor left it in neglect for six years.

Senator Kim Carr interjecting—