Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Defence (Senator Johnston) to questions without notice asked by Senators Wong, Conroy and Carr today relating to the Australian naval manufacturing industry.

We learnt two things in question time today. Firstly, no-one in this government appears capable of keeping a promise. The second thing we noticed is that the South Australian Liberals are the doormats in the Liberal party room. We know, of course, that the National Party have long been the doormats in the coalition party room. But let's be really clear: there is no advocate on that side of the chamber and on the frontbench prepared to stand up for South Australian jobs. We saw that when it came to Holden and we have seen it again today.

Minister Johnston had a number of occasions today when he could have backed in the promise he made to South Australia on behalf of the coalition prior to the election. I invite Senator Birmingham, who is in the chamber—and I hope he will speak—to reassert the promise that was made in Adelaide before the election. I invite him to say the words, 'We will honour our pre-election commitment.' He has his head down, and I guarantee that he will not recommit the coalition to an election promise that they want to break. That is because it was an election promise they made because of politics only.

The sad thing is that we know how important the shipbuilding industry is to South Australia. We know how important this industry is to Australia. We know how important it is for Australia's manufacturing and technology sector. We know how important it is for jobs, advanced technical engineering skills and cutting-edge manufacturing technologies. All of the coalition appear to have taken the Joe Hockey line on everything: it is always someone else's fault. We hear excuse after excuse from the coalition about this issue. Frankly, the excuses just do not stack up. Rather than go into that, I think it comes back to one simple issue: before the election the then shadow defence minister went down to Adelaide and said, 'The coalition is committed to building 12 new submarines here in Adelaide.' What have we heard since? What have we seen in this and

other question times since? We have seen ducking and weaving, preparation for the breaking of yet another promise from a government that seems incapable of keeping any pre-election promise. I would say also that this comes on top of the way this government walked away from the auto industry across the country, which is going to have such devastating effects on the economy of South Australia.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Huh!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz scoffs! Unlike him, we on this side of the chamber and I suspect across the chamber, apart from those opposite, do not believe that seeing thousands of workers lose their job is something simply to be laughed off. We saw the Treasurer on the floor of the House of Representatives goading Holden to leave. Where were the South Australian Liberals? They were all very quiet. In the past there have been some staunch advocates for South Australia on both sides of the parliament in past governments. Under the coalition we saw Senator Minchin back Sundowner, we saw Robert Hill—staunch advocates for South Australia. Under our government we had advocates for South Australia, ministers at the table who were prepared to stand up for South Australia. Where is Christopher Pyne? Where is Mr Briggs?

Senator Birmingham interjecting—

Where are all the staunch advocates for South Australia? They are sitting quietly, simply allowing this coalition to destroy jobs in Adelaide and to break election promises which go directly to South Australian jobs. Senator Birmingham, if you get up to speak recommit to the promise and show the people who sent you here that you are not going to break another promise. (Time expired)

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What hypocrisy for Senator Wong to stand up here after she presided as Minister for Finance over one of the worst financial periods in Australia's history. Do not come in here with that hypocrisy and allege broken promises by this side. I refer Senator Wong to the Australian of 20 August 2007, when Mr Rudd promised:

Federal Labor has promised to extend South Australia's boom in defence work by building a new generation of submarines in Adelaide.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Off she goes!

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong, you do not want to listen to this? In South Australia, opposition leader Kevin Rudd said—

Senator Birmingham interjecting—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. As a matter of courtesy, I will let Senator Birmingham know, as I advised your leader, I do have an appointment now and I am seeking to attend it. If you wish to make a political point why don't you get up to speak.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong, that is not a point of order.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We were told that a Labor government would ensure that the submarines were built by ASC at the Port Adelaide site. We were told that production would begin in about 2017, at about the same time that work on the $6 billion air warfare destroyer in Adelaide would also be tapering off. Mr Rudd said:

Starting the process this year will guarantee continuity of work for South Australia's defence industry and those employed in the sector.

It will also provide a big boost to South Australia's growing knowledge and skills base and its reputation as the defence state.

What did you do? You did absolutely nothing, but you come in here with hypocrisy and making assertions of broken promises.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again I will call the Senate to order. I would ask senators from both sides of the chamber to cease interjecting. Senator Fierravanti-Wells, I also request that you direct your comments to the chair.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the time, we were also informed that the Rudd Labor government would make it a priority to ensure that the necessary preliminary work on Australia's next generation of submarines was carried out in time for consideration and initial approval in 2011. 2011 came and went and nothing happened. Mr Rudd asserted at the time:

There is widespread agreement that the Collins Class boats built by ASC in Adelaide are the best conventionally powered submarines in the world and that they provide a vital military capability for Australia.

If that was the case, why did you do absolutely nothing?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They must have run out of napkins after the NBN plan.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, absolutely. They ran out of napkins. I remind the Senate, and Senator Carr, who came in and bleated today, that 140,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the time in which he was the minister. I also remind those opposite that Mitsubishi left South Australia under Labor's watch. So don't come in here as the party that gave us the biggest broken promise of all—that is, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'—and make these assertions.

As the Prime Minister indicated on the weekend—and he wanted to stress this, so I would like to repeat it to those opposite—we will make 'the right decisions for the right reasons'. He said:

Defence acquisitions have to be made on the basis of defence logic; not industry policy, not regional policy, but on the basis of sound defence policy.

He went on to say:

… we have not yet made a final decision on the design and build of the next generation of Australian submarines. But, there will be more of them. The bulk of the Australian work will be done here in Adelaide, and that means more jobs for South Australia. … the best way to help South Australia, the best thing that we can do for South Australia, the best thing that any of us can do for any of the great states of this Commonwealth is to build a stronger economy.

I also refer to comments that Minister Johnston made at an address to the Australian defence industry group— (Time expired)

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the answers from Senator Johnston to questions from opposition senators. I think those who are listening to this debate, if they can see it, should know that there are no South Australian coalition senators in the room. This is an issue about 12 new submarines that were promised, and now we have a complete reversal of the commitment given by successive governments to defence shipbuilding and submarine building.

I do not want to stand here and say that everything has been perfect, but if you have a glance at the air warfare destroyer program you will see the comments in there going to the heart of what Senator Wong's contribution was. There have been people on both sides of the chamber committed to building naval hardware, submarines, warfare destroyers and the like. Successive governments accepted that there was a premium on that. There was a 30 per cent premium; it is quantified in the audit report. Successive governments quantified a premium on building this stuff in Australia, developing the capability and developing the workforce, because building your own submarines, your own hardware to defend this nation, is the sensible thing to do. Minchin, Hill and Downer were all great contributors in this space.

But what do we have now? We have a complete absence of anyone in the government articulating for the workforce. We had the minister saying that people in the gallery should have some influence and get people to be more productive. I was on the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. I asked the question: is this a case of people taking the wages and not doing the work? The answer came back, 'No, Senator, that is not the case. It is the fact that we have redrawn the work several times.' In some cases the work was redrawn up to six times, and the work had been done three times by the workforce. The productivity of the workforce is not in question. The productivity overall in the scheme is in question, because Spanish designers do not translate into Australian shipbuilders.

There is the same issues with the Collins class submarines. I have spoken to people who work in that area, and the redrawing of the drawings was compounding the cost blowout in every case. Yet these people have the gall to say it is the workforce. Senator Fawcett knows very clearly that it is not the workforce. He is intimately involved with this and understands the issue very well. He is not in the chamber today. Senator Edwards is probably a bit bereft of knowledge in this area. Senator Birmingham and Senator Bernardi—all absent in defending what is a very critical part of the South Australian economy. We want to be the defence state. You can get bipartisan cooperation on this if you invest in it. It has been going on since Robert Hill, Nick Minchin and Downer. They understood that you need to invest.

What we have now, very clearly—I am not sure how confidential this is—in a briefing this morning the Japanese ambassador said, 'We are looking forward to a very close cooperation with Australia, particularly in respect of submarines.' What does that do for the workforce there, patiently waiting for someone to get their act together so that they can actually build and deliver 100 per cent on-time, first class, excellent products? It terrifies those people. They are without a voice in the government. If you look around the other side of the chamber, there are people of independent mind and stature who do take their own side on—they have taken their own side on with the PPL and whatever else they disagree with. Senator Macdonald has been toasting the Finance Minister at length in committee. He has repeatedly asked questions about the sense of the Finance Minister's arguments. What do we have here? Not one South Australian making a contribution, other than Senator Birmingham's snide remark about the Leader of the Opposition leaving for an important meeting. That is a shame. They need to be truly embarrassed for themselves. They need to stick up for South Australia and have a go.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All I can reflect is, 'Thank God the Labor Party didn't put a team into the World Cup soccer.' With three leaders like Senators Wong, Conroy and Carr, they just would have had three home goals. Imagine trying to take on Senator David Johnston when it comes to matters related to Defence, given his obvious answering of and knowledge of the questions. It is a shame that some of you in the gallery did not hear the pathetic questions and Senator Johnston kicking them away as expertly as he did. He was armed with the fact that the recent Minister for Defence under the Labor government—a Western Australian, now Mr Stephen Smith—allowed some $23 billion of money to be lost out of the Defence budget under the last Labor government.

It might interest some people listening to this to know that in fact, as a proportion of GDP under Labor, Defence spending got down to figures equivalent to in 1938, which was before the Second World War. And here is Senator Wong, who once was the Minister for Finance of this country, who was the South Australian minister at the time and who had the opportunity to actually set the South Australian shipbuilding industry up for the future. But what did Senator Johnston say about that? In 2008, the opportunity was there to secure this for the future and the then Labor government—led by its Minister for Finance, who was based in South Australia, Senator Wong, who did nothing. They lost the opportunity, they did not take it up and here they are whingeing.

We then come to the questions of Senator Conroy, the minister for the no bloody network—the NBN! I remember in my first weeks in this place asking Senator Conroy where the business case was for the NBN. Of course, there was your usual cynicism and your usual derision, Senator Conroy, saying, 'We do not need a business case for a multi-billion dollar project.' There was no cost-benefit analysis and no risk analysis, because it was all done on the back of a napkin on a VIP flight from Adelaide up to Canberra. What a shame the flight was not from Perth to Canberra, because it is a longer flight, so they might have actually got a few things right!

What Senator Johnston said in answer to Senator Conroy was: 'When they opened the bickie barrel, as a result of winning government from Labor, how much money was there?' What was in the bickie barrel? There was absolutely nothing. Should we be surprised at that from a minister who supposedly ran NBN Co and a minister who proudly came into this place and was able to tell us that he could do so without a business plan, without a cost-benefit analysis and without a risk analysis, when indeed the greatest risk to the NBN is sitting opposite me here: Senator Conroy.

We now come to Senator Kim Carr. I think it was Senator Fierravanti-Wells, in the last few minutes, who said that under his stewardship 140,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in this country as a result. That was under the stewardship of Senator Kim Carr. We had bleating going on about the car industry. Indeed, if I am correct, Mitsubishi left South Australia as a manufacturer under the then federal and, indeed, state Labor governments. Senator Johnston, the minister, was able to give us those such telling figures when it came to the criteria for actual assessment of shipbuilding capacity with the fact that internationally the yardstick is some 60 man-hours per tonne of construction. The Australian government lifted that 60 to 80 as our standard, but what was achieved was a figure of 150.

In the few minutes available to me, I will just quote from Senator Johnston's comments to the Australian Business Defence Industry group only in the last week. This is what he said:

Our local defence industry contributes significantly … for industry to be sustainable there needs to be significant and smart investment from both Government and industry… Under-investment in Defence by the previous Labor Government resulted in a breakdown in Australia’s long term defence planning.

There are the answers for the failures of the then Labor government. (Time expired)

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate today on answers to questions on Defence procurement. Today in question time, Senators Wong, Carr and Conroy asked questions of the Minister for Defence—the hapless and hopeless Senator Johnston—about the future of the Australian submarine project. Questions were asked with the intention of finding out from the minister whether or not he would stick by his commitment, made before the 2013 federal election, that those 12 submarines will be built in my home state of South Australia and by South Australian workers.

We wanted to find out from the minister whether he has changed his mind and is instead going to buy those submarines from Japan. Is he is going to buy those submarines from a foreign country? Will he rule out buying their submarines from Japan? Well, no. He clearly said, 'We will not rule it in and we will not rule it out.' That is no solace for the people of South Australia, who value so much our defence industries and in particular our defence shipbuilding industries.

We witnessed here today the birth of another broken promise from this terrible government. We have seen so many times that the government said one thing before the election—they deceived the people of Australia before the election—and immediately after the election did something completely different. They said that there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education and no cuts to pensions. What are we seeing? Cuts to all of those things. They said there would be no surprises, but there was a surprising new GP tax. Now, it looks like the defence industry is also going to be subject to another massive broken promise by this government.

I will remind you of exactly what the Minister the Defence said before the 2013 election. I printed this off today from his very own ministerial website. He said to the ASC, the Australian Submarine Corporation, in Adelaide on 8 May 2013:

The Coalition today is committed to building 12 new submarines here in Adelaide, we will get that task done, and it is a really important task, not just for the Navy but for the nation. And we are going to see the project through, and put it very close after force protection, as our number priority if we win the next Federal Election.

They did win the next federal election. And what are they doing? They are running away from that commitment to the Australian defence industry, to Australian shipbuilding, to South Australian jobs and to South Australians. When the minister made those statements back in May 2013, the people of South Australia thought quite rightly that the subs would be built in South Australia and that the hundreds of jobs at the Australian Submarine Corporation and the thousands of jobs in South Australia that depends on defence shipbuilding would be safe. Well, the people of South Australia have been well and truly deceived by this minister and this government, because today we heard there are no guarantees about those jobs at all. It was a disgrace that the minister said that in front of workers from the Australian Submarine Corporation and their union representatives, who are here today to hear what the minister would say. He said that he could not give them the guarantees of those jobs—even though his commitment before the federal election was quite clear.

Before the federal election Labor had a clear plan for Australia's naval shipbuilding industry. We were going to build the subs in South Australia and we were going to bring forward the build of the replenishment frigates. The new federal government have also walked away from ensuring that those new frigates are built in South Australia, and they even refuse to allow Australian companies to tender for that work. Those ships will also be built overseas. In that context the minister said that, in his view, it was beyond the capacity of Australia to build those ships. What a disgraceful, insulting thing to say to the workers of South Australia! What is even more insulting about this whole debate is that there is not one South Australian Liberal senator in the Senate chamber defending South Australian defence shipbuilding jobs—not one of them has got up to say anything to defend naval shipbuilding in South Australia. There is no-one here who will get up and say, 'We are going to do what we can to support jobs in South Australia.' They are as bad as their state Liberal colleagues. Where is Steven Marshall in this debate? He stood with David Johnston in May 2013 to say the ships would be built in South Australia and he is nowhere now. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.