Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

They will pursue any measure, any opportunity, to avoid having to talk about the substance—the substance of what we want to discuss. Before we leave at the end of this year, we need to have a debate about the Australia's Future Submarine project and the future of Australian shipbuilding. There is an argument constantly being put before us: that there is not time—that there is not time to build the future submarines here in this country. Rear Admiral Peter Briggs, retired, said:

Our strong recommendation is that we get bids from all four potential contenders and make a sensible, informed choice at that point and that we get on with it, because the clock is running.

Several independent witnesses who came to our committee gave evidence that sufficient time remains to conduct a competitive tender for the future submarines while avoiding this capability gap. This is due to the work on the future submarines undertaken by previous governments. In his evidence, Dr John White set out a timetable that included a competitive tender process—contracting, construction, testing and introduction to service—without there being a capability gap. I urge all senators to have a look at the evidence that was provided by him, evidence that Senator Edwards has spoken very highly of.

Finally, there is an argument that says the Australian shipbuilding industry is incapable of building the ships here. That is something that I comprehensively reject, but it is an idea that I believe deserves to be tested in a tender process. Retired Commodore Paul Greenfield said:

The future submarine should be designed specifically for Australia and built here in Australia. A sail-away cost of $20 billion for twelve submarines built in Australia is entirely feasible, and Australian industry has much to offer in solving the truly unique engineering challenges.

Mr Glenn Thompson, from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, said:

It is better to build to ensure that you have the skills to maintain.

And Professor Goran Roos said:

Australia as a country is at least $21bn better off to build in Australia than to purchase overseas in addition to creating 120,000 man years of additional jobs in the economy over the life of the project as compared to building overseas.

I am not an expert. I am not in a position to make a determination about the validity of the statements being made by those eminent professionals. What I am in a position to say is that the best way to ensure that we are getting value for money and that we are protecting Australian jobs is to allow the open tender process to continue, because, if they are wrong, if Australia does not have the capability to do it, if the ability is not here—and I have no reason to believe that they are wrong—then an open, transparent, fair tender process is the best way of exposing that. At the end of the day, this is where the debate should come to.

The debate that we need to have is fundamentally about a very simple question: what is the best way of deciding where and how Australia's submarines should be built? Is the best way of doing that saying, 'Let everyone put their bids forward; let everyone make their case; let everyone put forward their plans'? There will be German companies, there will be Australian companies, there will be Japanese companies, there will be Spanish companies and there will be variations and ventures, with part-Australian builds, part-international builds, part-design et cetera. Let them all come forward, and let us have a process where we, as a nation, can have a look at the different proposals and allow the market approach to produce the best outcome.

I find it unfathomable that I am the person in this chamber at the moment—not those opposite me—making the emphatic case to allow a market based response to this system, saying that the best way of determining how these ships should be built is to allow the private sector to compete with one another. I worry and fear that the path that the government is going down—if it has not already reached that conclusion—is about rejecting that. I refuse to believe that allowing one group, one company, in one nation the opportunity to build Australia's future submarines will ensure that we have the best value for money. I believe a competitive tender process will always give you a better outcome. The big argument against all of this that is constantly being raised by the government and that has been attempted to be made—because they cannot make the case about cost any longer or the case that Australian firms are not able to build it—is that somehow we do not have time, and that is why we have to go internationally and not allow the Australians to compete. But expert after expert, eminent researcher after researcher, economist after economist has come forward and universally they have stated that that is not the case and that you can, in a period of one year, have a proper process that allows a competitive tender. It is not as if this is going to be coming as a surprise to the market. The market expects there to be, at some point soon, the opportunity to bid for these Australian submarines. It is not as if work has not already begun or happened in this space in recent times. The best approach is to allow that.

I think it is a good process that the government so far has ruled out some kind of a MOTS option, a modified off-the-shelf option. I quote Commander Frank Owen, retired, from the Submarine Institute of Australia, who said:

There are no MOTS options. Even the most capable of available overseas submarines will require modification.

So there is going to have to be this process anyway. While we are going through that process of modification, of getting a plan together for an internationally built submarine, why not, as part of that process, allow the Australian companies to compete? Why not allow Australian firms to say, 'This is our bid; we are good enough; we are strong enough; we are professional enough to compete with the best in the world, and we are going to do it in an open, transparent, fair way'? We are not asking for industry policy that gives Australian firms an unfair advantage over competing firms. We are simply asking that Australian firms be given the same opportunity to compete as international firms. We are here today, and we are urging for the best, most sensible market-based approach to the future of Australia's submarine projects.