Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

This really is a dysfunctional, chaotic government. This is a government who would rather stand up and argue ideological rhetoric than actually worry about jobs for Australian workers. This is a government that would sacrifice the car industry in Victoria, sacrifice the submarine industry in South Australia for the sake of their ideology. I saw that Senator Edwards was going to make a statement today and I said: 'This is great, Senator Edwards is actually going to stand up for himself. He is actually going to tell the truth.' But what did Senator Edwards do? He lost all courage and he simply read a speech, prepared for him in the PM's office to try and save the Prime Minister's skin. That is what he did today.

Senator Edwards is a guy who has gone from a rooster to a feather duster in 24 hours. He was boasting about his great victories in his local news, The Flinders News, saying that he told the Prime Minister that there had to be a competitive tendering process for the submarines. He said: 'I scored a big win for South Australia with an assurance from the Prime Minister that the Australian Submarine Corporation and South Australian shipbuilders will be given the opportunity to tender for the Future Submarine contract.' This is his hero position in the local newspaper: 'What a great job I did, I got Tony Abbott re-elected, and I gave him my vote in return for the submarine contract being a competitive contract.' Then it all crashed down around Senator Edwards, because the competitive tender suddenly became a 'competitive evaluation process' that nobody understands—nobody understands what it is. Yesterday, Senator Abetz made a pathetic attempt to try and tell people what a competitive evaluation process was—nobody knows what it is! It is an absolute joke. Mr Deputy President, let me tell you what happened with Senator Edwards. He then went from 'a competitive evaluation process' to 'an opportunity to participate'. South Australia has an opportunity to participate! These weasel words are not good enough. We are talking about jobs in South Australia. We are talking about the future of one of the biggest contracts ever in this country—and yet Australian industry is not being allowed to tender because a deal has been done—a handshake has been done—between the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, and the Prime Minister of Japan—to build the subs in Japan. That is what this is about, and that is why we have the weasel words. We do not have one South Australian senator who had the guts to stand up and take the Prime Minister on—or take this leadership on, in this rotten government—and say, 'We want jobs in South Australia'.

Senator Edwards claims that he has always been a supporter of South Australian jobs. Well, that is not true—because when we had the former defence minister, Senator Johnston, saying they could not build a canoe in South Australia, what did we hear from the South Australian senators? Not a word. Not a whisper. They sat back, with their jelly backs and their weak knees, and they just let the South Australian manufacturing workers and the South Australian industry be trashed by this government. This is a rotten government. This is a government that would send jobs to Japan. This is a government that chases the manufacturing industry and the car industry out of this country. And the South Australian senators are being trashed by their own people: Mr Jamie Briggs said that Senator Edwards was lying and desperately misrepresenting the PM's position to bolster his preselection chances. What a rotten mob they are—they would sell Australian workers out for their preselection! They are dysfunctional, chaotic and absolutely hopeless.