Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Defence's advice to the government is that, given the size of the ships, there are no shipyards currently capable of constructing the replacement supply ships in Australia. Any upgrades to the infrastructure would need to have been completed by now in order to avoid a critical capability gap and to avoid causing delays to the AWD program. Unfortunately, the Labor government did not commission any ships for six years, nor did they undertake the necessary infrastructure improvements. The Turnbull government will not risk a critical capability gap and will acquire the replacement supply ships as soon as possible.