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

at a reasonable price.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

What Senator Cameron is championing is that if those two factors come into play it must be in Japan. We have not come to that conclusion. What we have said is that we want to socialise this with a number of countries such as—as I understand it, and I will correct the record if need be, and possibly Senator Brandis can help—Germany, France and Japan. They are on the list, and we are looking to see the very best result that we can get, keeping in mind that it was the Australian Labor Party that, whilst in government for six years, did nothing whatsoever to develop the new generation of submarines that this country needs for its strategic defence. So, having done nothing for six years, they now come into this place pretending to champion the cause of Australian-made submarines.

If Senator Conroy and his colleagues before him had done the right thing, this process would have been well and truly in place, and indeed building should have been commencing. But, when we came into government, we realised that the promises that the Labor Party had made about how far they had gone down the road were shallow, hollow and untrue. (Time expired)