Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Van's matter of public importance motion. This country used to make things: tanks, aeroplanes, submarines. We used to have what they call 'sovereign defence capability'. That means that we could make the things we needed to defend our country, here, in Australia. Now, we have very little sovereign defence industry left—and, by the way, I am not counting those companies who say they are Australian just because they have officials here.

The coalition mainly sat on their hands for nine years, and, from what I hear, the current government is not doing much more. Actually, strike that. In some ways, they are worse—for example, the AUKUS nuclear submarines that we were supposed to get by 2035, if we were lucky, and that was just one submarine. Under the AUKUS deal, the first thing the Australian taxpayer has been asked to do is hand over 10 billion bucks—yes, 10 billion!—to the US and UK submarine industrial base. How about that! Since 2009 the Australian government has wasted billions of dollars trying to decide on a replacement for the Collins class submarines, which, by the way, were built here in Australia. It doesn't matter whether you think nuclear subs are a good idea or not; the AUKUS deal is both risky and eye-wateringly expensive.

Both parties claim they take defence seriously because they spend lots of money, but spending buckets of money with little or nothing to show for it is not being serious about defence, let alone our national security. I'll give some examples of past stuff-ups, because I don't have an hour. The C-27J Spartan battlefield transport aeroplanes, the result of a desktop selection, were found to be not well suited for battlefield operations and are now used as light transport. Then there were the Arafura class offshore combat vessels—12 vessels that Navy has since determined are unsuitable for intended maritime operations. Then there were the future frigates. Let's not go into that; I don't have enough time. These planned ships have got bigger and more expensive. The costs blew out, and the project was slashed from nine ships to six but at the same inflated price.

These stuff-ups are not just in the past. At the last estimates hearings, senators were trying to find out how much of the taxpayers' $10 billion we'd get back if AUKUS didn't go ahead. Vice Admiral Mead refused to answer Senator Shoebridge's question because it was, apparently, 'an irrelevant hypothetical'. Now we know that the US and UK have an expense-free get out clause, and all they have to do is give us 12 months notice. You people in here cannot be serious. People are laughing at you. You could not run a corner shop between the two of you, and our national security is in the situation it's in because of you two, I can assure you. If you think those nuclear subs are going to help us tomorrow, I tell you what: wake up to yourselves.