Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Xenophon, I thank you for your question and acknowledge your particular interest in this area. The tender is indeed closed. It closed on 7 August this year. Defence is currently assessing those tenders and is planning to return to the government for consideration of second-pass approval in 2016. I can advise the senator that, obviously, Australian content will be considered as part of this assessment and particularly the ongoing support of the ships. Senator Xenophon, you acknowledged that the tender process is underway. So it is inappropriate for me to comment on the specifics of what the tenderers may or may not have indicated in their response.

Senator Xenophon has asked about a very key capability area. These current supply ships are in very urgent need of replacement. When we came to government, in 2013, their replacement was Navy's highest capability priority. The replenishment vessels are essential to support sustained and able deployments. The best advice to government from Defence at the time was that we could not build these ships in Australia in the time required without risking a very serious capability gap. So in June 2014 the government announced first-pass approval for the limited competitive tender process to which the senator referred because both of those tenderers had solutions based on existing designs, therefore helping significantly in terms of timeliness.