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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This report on the Defence Materiel Organisation is so important in the context of the situation we are facing in South Australia at the moment. We have a government that has done a deal with the Japanese government to build submarines in Japan and that has, by taking that approach, abandoned the work force and the community of South Australia. This is during a period when South Australia has the highest unemployment rate in the country—7.3 per cent. They have not yet felt the effects of this government's killing off of the car manufacturing sector in this country, and now more jobs are being sent overseas from the submarine project.

I want to indicate how important this submarine project is. According to the Economic Development Board of South Australia, 3,000 Australian jobs will be created every year over the 40-year life of the project if it is built in Australia. How ridiculous it is for the Prime Minister to make another captain's call and hand this project to the Japanese. This is absolutely outrageous. We see bickering and backstabbing in this incompetent coalition. When Senator Edwards belatedly stands up for his own state, belatedly stands up for jobs in South Australia, what happens to him? He is accused of lying by his own frontbench.