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

As Senator Bernardi has quite rightly said, it was running 21 months late and $360 million over its target cost; and that was about midway through the construction of ship one. Labor failed in its duty to deliver naval capability. Issues were put in the too-hard basket, just as I have indicated over so many weeks with the future submarine project. So yet another challenge was left to this government, and more particularly Defence—to me—to fix. We all want a viable local shipbuilding industry; I think that is a given. People are supportive of our defence industry, but they do expect and demand value for money. The air warfare destroyer program must be recovered, and the Abbott government has a plan to do this. Minister Cormann and I commissioned the Winter review to get to the bottom of what was wrong with the program. The overall intention is to get industry to the type of productivity we were able to demonstrate through the Anzac frigate build program. Our advisers are working hard behind the scenes with ASC and the other industry players to transform this program from the problem that it was. It has been an enormous challenge.

Senator Conroy interjecting—