Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] If Senator Pratt had bothered to look at any of the detail of what was said when the Jandakot site was announced as a preferred location a little over a week ago, she would have known that at the time I spoke very publicly about the fact that terms in relation to access to that site weren't settled, that contingency and back-up plans looking at other sites were underway and that the government was receiving advice. Indeed, the memorandum of understanding that we signed with the Western Australian government, who are clearly far more mature on these issues than Senator Pratt or the Anthony Albanese opposition, acknowledged the fact that there were contingency sites underway. The WA government has been engaged in that and is aware of that. What we've done is we've moved to the Bullsbrook site, the defence training centre there, on the basis of it being the site that will enable us to most efficiently, in terms of time and money, get the project built and delivered. That's why we're going there. It's that simple.