Nick Xenophon (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Minister Payne, representing the Minister for Defence Industry, in relation to Australia's naval shipbuilding program. Can the minister confirm the future frigate program tender explicitly prevents the two sovereign and established Australian shipbuilders, ASC and Austal, from taking any management or supervisory role—in other words, acting as a prime contractor—for the Navy's $35 billion future frigate program? For this nationally significant defence project, is it the case that only a foreign company can take the lead and that it will be a foreign company that controls the program, a foreign company that will install its own management teams in Adelaide, a foreign company that will choose the workforce, a foreign company that will control the intellectual property and a foreign company that will determine the shipyard's strategic direction—for example, whether there'll be future exports to other countries?