Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

Of course the question of defence spending is a complete ruse—it is a stat that the minister likes to quote.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

It is also true that during the Rudd-Gillard era we saw defence spending approach the level of two per cent, a rate that for much of that time was higher than what was being spent during the Howard era. The reality is that what we have seen since this government came to power is a wholesale loss of jobs in the Australian shipbuilding industry. The shipbuilding yards in Williamstown and the Forgacs shipbuilding yards are now bereft of work. As the minister absolutely correctly said, 1,500 real people, with real families, are no longer working in this industry. A key part of this was the consistent approach by this government that there is not the capability in this country to perform indigenous defence work, which is absolutely incorrect. That is what has led to a situation where supply ships are now being built in Spain that could have been built here, and in fact it is quite clear that there would be the capacity for that to occur.

I want to ask the minister about submarines. This is the single biggest procurement in Australian defence history. It is a critically important procurement for Australia's future capability and it is one that has been treated with scant regard by this government since they came to power. The idea that a procurement of $50 billion up front and many tens of billions more in maintenance through the life of the project gets tossed around a party room over a leadership contest is absolutely astonishing. It is very much to this government's shame that they treated a procurement of that significance, both in terms of the amount of money which goes into it but also in terms of our nation's defence, with such disrespect by not considering it strictly in terms of what was the best public policy in the national interest but making it a matter of internal politics within the government party room.

The process which has now been put in place saw the announcement of the DCNS as the preferred design partner. That of course is not a contract to build the submarines as such—it is a contract to provide a design for the future submarine. We have very long time lines in place in relation to the procurement of the submarines—we will not be seeing steel being cut until 2021, and we will not see the first submarine in the water engaging in activity until 2032. The implication of that is the requirement for a significant upgrade of the Collins class submarine, given that we are talking about a 16-year horizon between where we are today and the first occasion on which the future submarines will be in the water. There are a whole lot of issues that need to be addressed and risk that needs to be managed between now and then. Given that we are talking about the continued operation of the Collins class through until that time, inevitably there will be significant expense at the back end of that period in maintaining the Collins class.

That leads to me these questions. Can the minister absolutely guarantee that all the future submarines will be built in Australia—not just the first off the line, but that none of them will be built in France? Will the timelines, as lengthy as they are, be able to be maintained on the basis of all of these submarines being built in Australia? The minister has said that 90 per cent of the submarines will have Australian content in them. That appears to be a figure which has not been backed up by either the Minister for Defence or the secretary of Defence in Senate estimates, so how can the minister assure us that 90 per cent of this build will be done in Australia?

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