Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise and speak today on this motion moved by the member for Fisher. As an MP representing the electorate with the largest base of the Royal Australian Navy in the country, I'm very happy to have this opportunity to discuss the important links between defence and small business. I'm glad the member for Fisher has taken time out from his obsessive compulsion to attack the workers of this country and the trade union and labour movement to focus on a more productive and honest debate, such as this one, rather than on his strange predilection for standing up in the chamber to assert wild inaccuracies about the employment history of Labor MPs.

Defence has long been a largely bipartisan issue in Australian political history. Both Labor and the coalition see the value in maintaining, strengthening and modernising the Australian defence forces and our national defence capabilities. As well as being the local representative in this place for many members of the Royal Australian Navy and their families, I'm also the shadow minister assisting in small business, and how small business can participate in defence contracting is very important to me in this role.

Fairness, stability and balance are at the forefront of the ALP's approach to policy-making regarding defence. It is why we have raised concerns regarding some aspects of the government's multibillion dollar investment in Australian defence capabilities. It is why we on this side of the chamber believe that due process and correct tendering processes should be paramount in regard to this investment, as opposed to short-term electoral pork-barrelling, which is the eternal temptation of governments under pressure. I'm sure those opposite, on the government benches, share this view, and I particularly look forward to working with WA members of parliament in the government in securing a greater, more secure and equitable share of the overall Defence spend to ensure that this is a truly national endeavour. As all Western Australians know, the Australian Marine Complex in Henderson has extraordinary capacity in terms of shipbuilding and maintenance capacity as well as extensive links to small and medium businesses in the adjacent industrial estate. The capacity is there, and it should be applied.

Making sure small business, a core of the Australian economy, is able to tap into this Defence investment is a cause I'm very happy to support through the Commonwealth initiatives such as the 2016 Defence White Paper and the Centre for Defence Industry Capability and the Integrated Investment Program. However, while I'm sure well intentioned, ease of access by small and medium enterprises to Defence sites and contracts does remain difficult and sometimes murky. Of course, I understand security concerns and regulations; however, it should not be overly difficult to tap into the system as a small business. I've heard some of these concerns raised in my electorate. I've heard about the difficulty of getting on a panel; having to supply an immense and sometimes mind-boggling list of records and documents just to get there; and the difficulty of work once you are on the panel in having to comply with regulation after regulation and continually dealing with sometimes distant multinationals with a small group of contractors at the top end. Sometimes these things can be overwhelming to small and medium enterprises. These are issues that SMEs and microbusinesses are talking about regularly, and it would do us all well as members of parliament to listen to their concerns.

The investment in our defence capacity and capability is welcome, and with it there must be a focus on Australian capacity and capability. There is clear evidence of this happening, particularly in my electorate of Brand, and I do welcome that. Only two week ago, I was at HMAS Sterling as part of a week-long ADF parliamentary program and have seen how Defence are utilising local contractors in the extensive upgrades and modernisation of the base. I was very pleased to be briefed by the ADF on how it is seeking to and making use of local and proximate small business contractors to carry out the largest works program on Garden Island for some time. It's a hive of activity at the moment, and that's very pleasing to see. Not that you'd expect anything else, but all reports are of the ADF and contractors working excellently together with superior processes in place to manage a very significant and welcome program of upgrades to the largest and most strategically significant naval base in the nation.

I was very pleased to participate in the HMAS Sterling Walk to Work and family fun day a couple of Fridays ago as part of the ADF program, and I was really happy to see that many of the local contractors were invited and attended with their families. They took part in the nearly seven-kilometre walk on quite a windy day over the Garden Island Causeway Bridge, and they mingled with all the ADF personnel and their families who live in the nearby district of Rockingham and are stationed on the base.

The community and family ties between the base and the Rockingham-Kwinana area have been present for as long as I can remember, which is a fair while. I was born nearly five years before the base was commissioned, and earlier this year I was happy to be at its 40th birthday celebrations on the base itself. I'm happy to see the link between small business, the community and the ADF happening on HMAS Sterling.

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