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

I do not have the advantage of the Hansard for the committee hearings, so I have not actually been able to read the evidence. That is not available at this point. But let me be very clear, again. The government's decisions in relation to the Future Submarine are going to grow the submarine workforce in this country. There is no change to that view. There is no change to that direction. It is an absolute commitment: 1,100 direct jobs, 1,700 indirect jobs and more beyond that in global supply chains and Australian supply chains, right across the submarine build and right across the surface ship build. But, if I were in the position that those opposite find themselves in, I would not want to hear about this—because if you made no decisions, if you made no effort to ensure you preserved a workforce that could build ships in Australia to the degree that those opposite insist was apparently the case, if you did nothing, if your output was zero— (Time expired)