Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. It was revealed in Senate estimates yesterday that 75 per cent of the contents of ration packs for Aussie diggers are foreign produced, including items such as plain biscuits, fruit cake, tea, coffee and tomato sauce. Even the toilet paper is from China. Does the Prime Minister agree that Australian troops serving our country should be supplied with Australian goods in their ration packs, which would also support Aussie food manufacturing? If so, how would the government rectify this situation?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The revised Commonwealth Procurement Rules came into effect on 1 March this year. Senator Xenophon, in fact, advocated for the changes. The Commonwealth is now required to assess the economic benefit to the Australian economy of each procurement. I am advised that the vast majority of items in ADF ration packs are Australian and New Zealand products. I am advised that the Department of Defence always looks to maximise Australian content, in stark contrast to the negligence of the Labor government during its six years.

Leaving aside the very important issue of the ADF ration packs, I would remind the honourable member, who, of course, represents an electorate in the state of South Australia, that during six years of Labor government not one Australian naval vessel was commissioned from one Australian yard—not one. The naval shipbuilding requirements of our nation—the defence of our nation—were set to one side in the sea of complacency and neglect that so characterised the government of which so many members opposite were part.

The Department of Defence awards these contracts for the ration packs to the winning tenderer based on quality and value for money to meet the ADF's high standards. I understand that this particular tender closed before the new procurement guidelines came into effect yesterday, 1 March.