Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) to a question without notice asked by Senator Conroy today relating to the manufacture of the next fleet of Australian submarines.

Senator Cash interjecting—

You have just been rolled by the High Court; I would sit there quietly! Let us be clear, we now have a Prime Minister who is reduced to trading votes for submarines. How low has he sunk when he is trading our most lethal defensive asset for a vote to shore up his leadership. He is a man bereft—

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

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. What Senator Conroy has just said is clearly a reflection on motives and a reflection on the Prime Minister, and it needs to be withdrawn.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, all that has happened here is that what Senator Edwards has put on the public record as a matter of fact is being proposed here: that the Prime Minister did trade the votes.

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

Senator Cameron, that is debating the point. I have taken advice. I think you are very close to the position of reflecting, Senator Conroy. I remind senators that they ought not reflect adversely on members of either house. Senator Conroy, you can continue.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate your advice, Mr Deputy President. What we are seeing here is submarines for votes. If you have not seen it yet—I am sure you circulated it to the South Australian branch members, Senator Ruston—I recommend that all senators view the interview that Senator Edwards gave on Sky News yesterday. The smile that you are seeing today on Senator Brandis's face as he skipped around the chamber was in the knowledge that there is now a worse political interview than his own on metadata. He can now say, 'I was not the worst this government has produced,' because Senator Edwards gave an interview that was excruciating. In fairness to Senator Edwards, though, we know that he was sent out last weekend by the Prime Minister's office to prop up the Prime Minister. He was sent out to do a job on behalf of Mr Abbott. All he did was tell the truth. He told the truth about his conversation with Mr Abbott. At no stage in the past, tawdry, five days has Senator Edwards contradicted what he said on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Not once in the spiel we had from him earlier today did he deny what he said. He was sent out again, yesterday, to try to clean up the mess that the Prime Minister has caused himself. Just so you can get it accurately for your letters to your members, Senator Ruston, let me quote what Senator Edwards said. Mr Speers asked him:

So I just want to be clear, that’s not happened. The PM never said the word tender to you?

Senator Edwards:

No. I’m not going to represent what the PM said to you. You ask the PM.

…   …   …

I'm telling you, I used those words.

Mr Speers:

But did the PM use that rhetoric? Did he use that word?

Senator Edwards:

I believe he did because when I asked him, 'Now can I confirm that the ASC can compete in this tender?', he said: 'Yes, you can.'

That is the Prime Minister of Australia trading away $20 billion of Defence acquisitions—just trading it off.

Today we have had more attempted damage control from this shambolic government. We see reports, which are not denied, that junior Liberal frontbencher, Mr Briggs, we are told, in an expletive filled phone call to Senator Edwards accused him of 'lying and deliberately misrepresenting the Prime Minister's position to bolster his Senate preselection chances' against you, Senator Rushton, or against Senator Fawcett. And now, just before question time, the Prime Minister finally crawls out from hiding and this is what he had to say about Senator Edwards:

The term I have used in public and in private is a competitive evaluation process.

So he has accused Senator Edwards of lying about what the Prime Minister said. There it is: we wait till after we have sent Senator Edwards out into the chamber to try and clean up the mess, and he still does not because he is not going to lie for the Prime Minister. We go out and dump and cut him up. We leave him hanging out to dry. The Prime Minister got you both last Monday—(Time expired)

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of answers. What a pleasure it has been to listen to the diatribe of the last five minutes from the shadow Defence minister—the captain of designing policy on the backs of slips of paper—Senator Conroy. When we look at the previous government and their capacity for decision making in this particular policy space, it is a blank piece of paper. Instead of providing Defence with the capacity to purchase and procure, they rip $16 billion out of the budget—that makes it a little difficult to get on with the job of purchasing.

When it comes to submarines, we are determined to take action on this particular issue—to get the best value for money and capacity for our Defence forces. Having participated in a procurement inquiry last year, I find that the ALP is quite strong on the rhetoric but quite weak on the action. We had very strong advocacy from the CFMEU around paper procurement. For six years, if the Labor Party was actually interested in ensuring the jobs of workers, particularly in regional areas—and I think about the Maryvale pulp mill in my home state of Victoria—then they would have done something. Instead they sat on their hands, as with this particular example, and now they are braying from the sidelines like the donkeys that they are, complaining rather than using the time they were in government to show leadership and make decisions.

When this issue needed to be dealt with in a timely manner, more than two years ago, where was the Labor Party? You were MIA—missing in action—on productive decision making in Defence for the entire time you were in government. In September 2013 the Australian people did vote for strong, united leadership and that is what they got after six years of debacle from the previous government—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A strong, united leadership!

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

Order!

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to take the tough decisions, Senator Cameron, because it is not easy. It is very easy to sit there and not make decisions that would actually bring budgets back into surplus over time or that will help economies to transition. That is the tough work of government. You are very strong on the rhetoric, but very quiet when it comes to making the tough decisions. We need shoulders to the wheel right now here in the Senate to assist fix the train wreck that is our budgetary position and that you are in denial about. Again, where is the Labor Party? MIA. You are even blocking savings you identified when you were in government. You sit here day after day refusing to help us to put this budget back into the black over time. It is a travesty for the Australian people and it is a travesty for future generations that are going to have to deal with paying that back—particularly when you look at the demographic tsunami that is approaching and the constraints that will impose on the health budget, on the aged care budget. But where are you? You are much more prepared to carp from the sidelines than get on with the real job, the hard lifting and the heavy lifting.

When I think about the Labor Party in government, I think about the billion dollars a month in debt they have left us. That is a lot of hospitals; it is a lot of nurses; it is a lot of teachers; it is a lot of infrastructure for universities; it is a lot of roads; it is a lot of ports—it is a lot of infrastructure that would assist in creating jobs for Australian workers as the mining boom comes off. That is why we put that program in place so that there would be jobs for those people to go to and to ensure that the economy continues to grow. You just do not understand; it is not part of your DNA. The last time the ALP delivered a surplus in government, 'Wind Beneath My Wings' was a top hit and the Berlin Wall came down—it was 1989. There are people in this parliament right now who were not even born when you, as a reform party, had a reform agenda that recognised that debt was a problem for government. It is a very sad case—(Time expired)

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This really is a dysfunctional, chaotic government. This is a government who would rather stand up and argue ideological rhetoric than actually worry about jobs for Australian workers. This is a government that would sacrifice the car industry in Victoria, sacrifice the submarine industry in South Australia for the sake of their ideology. I saw that Senator Edwards was going to make a statement today and I said: 'This is great, Senator Edwards is actually going to stand up for himself. He is actually going to tell the truth.' But what did Senator Edwards do? He lost all courage and he simply read a speech, prepared for him in the PM's office to try and save the Prime Minister's skin. That is what he did today.

Senator Edwards is a guy who has gone from a rooster to a feather duster in 24 hours. He was boasting about his great victories in his local news, The Flinders News, saying that he told the Prime Minister that there had to be a competitive tendering process for the submarines. He said: 'I scored a big win for South Australia with an assurance from the Prime Minister that the Australian Submarine Corporation and South Australian shipbuilders will be given the opportunity to tender for the Future Submarine contract.' This is his hero position in the local newspaper: 'What a great job I did, I got Tony Abbott re-elected, and I gave him my vote in return for the submarine contract being a competitive contract.' Then it all crashed down around Senator Edwards, because the competitive tender suddenly became a 'competitive evaluation process' that nobody understands—nobody understands what it is. Yesterday, Senator Abetz made a pathetic attempt to try and tell people what a competitive evaluation process was—nobody knows what it is! It is an absolute joke. Mr Deputy President, let me tell you what happened with Senator Edwards. He then went from 'a competitive evaluation process' to 'an opportunity to participate'. South Australia has an opportunity to participate! These weasel words are not good enough. We are talking about jobs in South Australia. We are talking about the future of one of the biggest contracts ever in this country—and yet Australian industry is not being allowed to tender because a deal has been done—a handshake has been done—between the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, and the Prime Minister of Japan—to build the subs in Japan. That is what this is about, and that is why we have the weasel words. We do not have one South Australian senator who had the guts to stand up and take the Prime Minister on—or take this leadership on, in this rotten government—and say, 'We want jobs in South Australia'.

Senator Edwards claims that he has always been a supporter of South Australian jobs. Well, that is not true—because when we had the former defence minister, Senator Johnston, saying they could not build a canoe in South Australia, what did we hear from the South Australian senators? Not a word. Not a whisper. They sat back, with their jelly backs and their weak knees, and they just let the South Australian manufacturing workers and the South Australian industry be trashed by this government. This is a rotten government. This is a government that would send jobs to Japan. This is a government that chases the manufacturing industry and the car industry out of this country. And the South Australian senators are being trashed by their own people: Mr Jamie Briggs said that Senator Edwards was lying and desperately misrepresenting the PM's position to bolster his preselection chances. What a rotten mob they are—they would sell Australian workers out for their preselection! They are dysfunctional, chaotic and absolutely hopeless.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of this issue. Mr Deputy President, for the benefit of Senator Cameron, I would like to clarify some of the issues that he raised. First of all, he might be interested to know that yesterday, the Premier of South Australia welcomed the federal government's approach. If Senator Cameron does not understand what the competitive evaluation processes are, I would like to remind him that they are processes that his own government used in 2010 to do an evaluation process of the MH-60 naval helicopter capability, after undertaking a competitive evaluation of the respective offers. So not only has the previous government used this process, the South Australian Premier has commended the government for this approach, and he has commended the minister for his comments yesterday.

I would like to remind those opposite about the facts. Instead of a lot of overblown rhetoric, I would like to take them back to the facts of this issue. Under Labor, defence spending fell to 1.6 per cent of GDP, its lowest level since 1938. In 2012-13, Defence suffered the biggest single cut to its budget—10.5 per cent—since the Korean War. Under Labor—not under the coalition—200,000 jobs were lost, and defence industry under Labor had to shed over 10 per cent of its workforce. I have to wonder, listening to Senator Cameron, where was he then? Where were the unions then, when the defence industry had to shed jobs? The fact is that the Defence Capability Plan under Labor was never affordable or deliverable. It was $18 billion underfunded to deliver Force 2030. Here are some facts that demonstrate just how bad it was under the previous government: 119 projects were delayed, 43 were reduced, and eight projects, all up, were cancelled. In 2007, in relation to the submarines, Kevin Rudd said that Labor would ensure the submarines were built by the ASC. He said the process would begin in 2017 so that it could go out for contracts in 2011. Still nothing had been done by 2013, but the Labor government promised that 12 new submarines would be built. But again there were no plans and no funding. Not only did Labor not fund the submarine project; they took $20 billion out of forward estimates and beyond for the project. Where were the Labor senators from South Australia then? Where was the AMWU then—when they were not only losing jobs but the future submarine program was never funded? In six years under Labor not a single ship was commissioned.

I would also like to address a bit further Senator Cameron's comments in relation to this government and jobs—in particular, that we are 'ideologically focused'. Absolutely we are! We believe in jobs and we believe in supporting small business. Again, there are some rather inconvenient facts for those opposite: in 2014 alone 213,000 new jobs were created under this new government. That is 585 new jobs every single day last year—a new job every 2½ minutes, every single day. Job creation is actually running at triple the pace it was under Labor. Where were those opposite, where were the unions, when this was occurring last year? In fact, 223,000 new companies were registered in Australia in 2014, an increase of almost 10.2 per cent. Where were the trade unions? Where were the senators opposite in encouraging and supporting new businesses, which meant new jobs all around the country? This current government is ideological. We do believe in investing in infrastructure and we are getting on with the projects. There are 85 projects currently under construction and another 94 in development. (Time expired)

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

I too rise to take note of the answer from Senator Abetz to Senator Conroy. I got a bit of a chill out of the last two contributions from the other side. I mean, you are in government, and you are promising to deliver, but you are breaking those promises and regurgitating five years of history about what some other government is alleged to have done. It is not all that comforting to the hundreds and thousands of working men and women in South Australia who simply want to contribute to the best of their skill and ability, nor to the small businesses surrounding those manufacturing jobs who want to participate in the economy to the best of their ability, the small to medium enterprises and the large businesses that this huge expenditure hangs off. What they got from the other side in contributions from Senator McKenzie and Senator Reynolds was absolute rubbish.

I want to put this on the record: MPs who conscientiously listen to their electorates—who think about policy—are assets, not inconveniences. They are worth a lot more than those who toady up to the media with the latest line approved by their leadership and reflect back what they think it wants to hear. That comes from an article not from Labor but from the Hon. Peter Costello. It was free advice to the Abbott government. The 'woodchucks' that he refers to in that article—I did not know what a woodchuck is; I had to Google it; it is a sort of a rodent, also known as a whistlepig—are eager for promotion and will say and do anything the leadership wants. That is where we are today. Someone on the other side had a little bit of intestinal fortitude and tried to stand up for his electorate because they are invading his space. He said: 'What are you doing about securing our small businesses, our small to medium enterprises, our big businesses and our jobs?' He stood up and tried to get a commitment.

Australian companies can tender for the biggest procurement decision in Australian defence history, and a government owned asset can tender for the biggest procurement contract in Australia's defence history Heaven forbid! If you approached voters in the street and said 'Do you think it's appropriate that Australian businesses and Australian government enterprises tender for the biggest defence contract in Australia's history?' I am not sure you would find anyone who would say 'No, we shouldn't. We should restrict it to a select group of international partners who we think we have more confidence in'—none of which has actually built the submarine that we need or operated a submarine under the same conditions as ours. And there is an abundance of evidence coming into the Senate economics committee inquiry and this parliament from all sorts of people with an interest in this area. They are all saying, 'It's a pretty simple process. We should have a complete competitive tender, and the assets the government owns would be foremost in that tendering process.'

We know from the Collins class submarine and the Navantia design that there have been huge problems with submarine plans drawn up in other languages. We know this from our learnt and lived experience. We know from the Australian National Audit Office reports that there is an average of 2.75 revisions to every drawing that is put in front of a tradesman, and we know that they have had to rebuild the work. And we know through the Auditor-General's contribution to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit that the productivity has been mainly about revision of drawings, a lack of clarity of drawings and doing the work twice.

I want to finish with this: we have many thousands of South Australian voters, many thousands of South Australian skilled workers—union members, and proudly so, some of whom were in this place yesterday—who simply want a fair go. And it really is beyond me that any government of any colour or any persuasion cannot see the clarity of letting people compete for the work and give a damn good result.

Question agreed to.