Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Cameron. I rise to speak on the amendment that is before the committee. I have to say that I am astounded at the front, the gall, the cheek and the chutzpah of those opposite. I am absolutely astounded that they would come in on a bill, the Omnibus Repeal Day (Spring 2014) Bill 2014, and come up with a stunt of this nature—a stunt which is completely unrelated to the legislation that is before the Senate and a stunt on an issue that they have such an astoundingly bad track record on.

I have heard others, in speaking to this amendment, speaking about promises. I remember promises. I remember promises from 2007 when then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kevin Rudd, promised that he would kick-start the building of new submarines in Adelaide. He said in 2007:

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

Mr Rudd, as we all know, went on to win that election, but did work start that year? No. Did it start in any of the following six years? No. Did we see amendments of this ilk during that time? Absolutely not. We did not see anything other than repeated promises and repeated inaction from those opposite. Not a contract entered into, no meaningful work on designs done, and no plans and no details on how this promise would be fulfilled, just a promise remade time and time and time again with absolutely nothing to back it up.

Now we have this stunt—brought on at 7.30 on a Monday night in the final parliamentary sitting week of the year—on a bill that is completely unrelated to what Senator McEwen rightly acknowledged is the biggest procurement project in Australia's history. Is this the way to handle the largest procurement project in Australia's history? Is the responsible thing to do to have ad hoc amendments to unrelated bills brought before this chamber for the Senate to consider rather than following the proper processes of government—processes that have been established since 2003? Since 2003, major Defence acquisitions have gone through a two-pass cabinet process—a dual consideration by cabinet, where the right assessment is undertaken, where the advice by the Defence chiefs is undertaken and where all of that information leads into considered decisions.

I appreciate that those opposite may not know much about the process that has been in place since 2003. They used it once or twice, but, because they were so incapable of making a decision when it came to Defence contracting, they did not have much reason to use it terribly often. They do not have much experience in it; they would not remember. They certainly did not do it when it came to submarines. Here is Senator Conroy, the architect of tonight's grand stunt. He was not much of an architect; it fell apart in the first 10 minutes. The architect has arrived. They would not know much about the established cabinet process. Senator Conroy certainly would not know, from his time around the cabinet table, because he never followed any proper procurement processes himself, whether it was for the Australia Network or whether it was for his NBN. They were all, of course, done on the fly and on the run, just like this amendment tonight is being done on the fly and on the run. It is little wonder that they could not make any decisions around the procurement of future submarines—little wonder they could not make those decisions, because they were too busy slashing the defence budget. They were too busy making cuts to defence, and deferring their defence budget, such that it would have been completely impossible for them to have actually made a commitment to a design of a submarine, or a commitment to a contract for a submarine, or a commitment as to when we would actually fill this critical capability gap in Australia's submarine and naval capacity.