Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Gallacher, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

  (i) the Economics References Committee has repeatedly requested information relevant to its inquiry into Australia's sovereign naval shipbuilding capacity from the Department of Defence, and

  (ii) in response to requests for information made on 24 February, 5 May, 3 June and 18 June 2020, the Department of Defence either failed to respond or failed to raise a public interest immunity claim when declining to provide the information;

(b) considers that, as a matter of parliamentary oversight, it is vital that the committee obtain the requested information so that it is not impeded in its inquiry;

(c) reaffirms the principle that information may only be withheld following consideration by the Senate of a properly founded claim of public interest immunity, as laid out in the order of the Senate of 13 May 2009 and reaffirmed multiple times since; and

(d) orders the Secretary of the Department of Defence to provide complete copies of the following documents to the Economics References Committee by no later than 5 pm on 16 October 2020:

  (i) Naval Group's:

     (A) Australian Industry Capability (AIC) plan submitted under the competitive evaluation process from the then DCNS (November 2015) for the SEA1000 Project, and

     (B) draft AIC plan and AIC strategy for the Australian Future Submarine Program (May 2018)

  (ii) in relation to the SEA1000 project:

     (A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Naval Group,

     (B) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Lockheed Martin, and

     (C) the AIC plans delivered to the Commonwealth by Naval Group and Lockheed Martin under their respective contracts,

  (iii) in relation to the SEA1180 project:

     (A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Luerssen, and

     (B) the AIC plan included in the contract at effective date,

  (iv) in relation to the SEA3036 project:

     (A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by Austal, and

     (B) the AIC plan included in the contract at effective date, and

  (v) in relation to the SEA5000 project:

     (A) the draft AIC plan (including AIC schedules) submitted as part of the response by BAE Systems,

     (B) the overarching AIC strategy included in the head contract (at effective date),

     (C) the AIC plan included in the head contract at effective date, and

     (D) the AIC plan, which the department has previously advised was to be publicly released in the first quarter of 2020.