Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs (House)) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. Thank you. A good colleague from Queensland is confirming my proposition that we do need to do better. Indeed, if we were to have a minister last a year or more, maybe it would help, but, frankly, there have been too many mistakes and too many commitments to the Australian public that have not been realised. Before the 2016 election, there was a commitment by the then minister, Christopher Pyne, that 90 per cent of the build of the future submarines would be in Australia. That did not materialise. After the 2016 election, having gone to the election with a promise of a 90 per cent local content spend, the government revised its commitment to local content and suggested there'd be a 60 per cent local content spend. Of course, that has not been realised either. It became apparent only some months ago that the defence contract that had been entered into with the French contractor, Naval Group, did not prescribe, through any enforceable provision, a minimum 60 per cent local content. We then had the spectacle of the head of Naval Group having to travel from France and quarantine for 14 days in Adelaide in order to meet the Minister for Defence, who was then not available to meet with him. That was for genuine reasons, but it has left the completely unacceptable situation where the largest defence asset contract in Australia's history has been mismanaged to such a degree. There's been a failure to get the subs into the water and a failure to keep the money in check, and it's therefore a terrible reflection of the government's inability to manage contracts.

I say to the government and the minister: you don't get to boast about increasing defence expenditure if the increase is only because you've blown out the defence contracts. You don't get to say, 'We're spending $40 billion more on defence,' because your defence contract went from $50 billion to $90 billion. That is not a commendation of any good governance, and it's not really in the interests of the nation for overspends to be counted as very good spending, as the government seeks to do. There are grave concerns by many about this failure. There's a complete mismatch; there is a contrast between the elevation of the rhetoric by the government with respect to national security and the failure and deficiency to deliver the contracts, to deliver the defence capability that our Defence Force needs and that our country needs. This yawning gap between government rhetoric and defence asset delivery is getting wider and wider, and we don't see any efforts by the government to fix it. Rhetoric will not fix it.

Today in estimates we witnessed some remarkable admissions made by the Secretary of the Department of Defence. Having promised that the submarines would be built in Australia, having promised that the hulls would be built in Australia, when pushed and asked and pressed, the Secretary of the Department of Defence had to admit that the possibility of the submarine hulls being built in this country is predicated upon our technical capability. And, of course, that is unknown. You don't get to say something is a surety subject to another matter, subject to X, but we just don't know what 'X' is. But that's what the government is seeking to convince the Australian public—that we will build things in this country. Yet we're not able to explain whether we have the technical capability to do so. That is a major problem. It is a fundamental breach of a commitment made by the Prime Minister and this government to the Australian people—over multiple elections, I might add—and it continues to be asserted by the defence minister.

We need to reconcile the admissions made by the Secretary of the Department of Defence in estimates today with the rhetorical statements made by the minister. It is not good enough for the Prime Minister or the defence minister to suggest that the submarines that we've contracted the French contractor, Naval Group, to build will be built here or predominantly built here; yet, when we push on that issue, it is clear that it is not resolved. We don't know the answer—or, if the government does know the answer, they're not telling the Australian public the reality of that situation at all, and that needs to change.

It is incumbent on this government to come clean. Historically, if you compare this government with previous governments, we know it is one which likes to hide many, many things, whether it's an on-water matter or there is some other reason why they can't tell the public why they're spending money in a particular way or how much they're spending. It's not good enough for the government to continue to hide behind vague, nebulous answers to simple questions about whether in fact our defence industry businesses and our defence industry workers will get the chance to benefit from enormous amounts of taxpayer money. It's not just about jobs and it's not just about businesses; it's about sovereign capability. We need a defence industry that can help build defence assets and maintain them, because that is good for our economy and it's good for national security. Without the capability, the skills and the know-how to build future defence assets, we are exposed. So this is an economic issue and a national security issue. The government have no answers to this question and refuse to come clean as to the situation with respect to these defence assets. They need to do better. We need to see the government account for the deficiencies in these defence contracts, because today's admissions are very, very disturbing.

When asked precisely by Senator Wong, the Secretary of the Department of Defence could not unequivocally say that the three hulls, the first three submarines under the Attack class program, would be built here, notwithstanding that that was a commitment made by this government, this Prime Minister and this defence minister. That is not good enough, and the Australian public deserve to know what is happening with respect to that. So there are many, many questions that need answering in relation to that matter.

We have, of course, issues with the frigate program, which I've gone to in earlier contributions in this place. We have questions around, for example, even the decision to have a royal commission into suicides among veterans and Defence personnel. We are glad that the government finally came to the position it did in relation to announcing a royal commission. I noticed, of course, that there is significant expenditure in the budget in relation to that commission, but there have been no terms of reference determined. There is no composition or architecture of the royal commission determined. We don't know who the commissioners will be. These are matters that really concern veterans and Defence personnel and their families, and we need to know answers to this.

It seems to me that the defence minister is more interested in cancelling tea at a Defence site than in actually delivering future submarines. I think it would be better for him to focus more on delivering Defence asset contracts or getting the architecture of the royal commission on this blight, with the huge number of tragic suicides we've seen. That's the focus that the government needs to attend to, not this gratuitous waste of time on matters that are not important. They're ephemeral. They're not fundamental to the interests of Defence personnel or their families. They're not fundamental to the national security of this nation. They are distractions by a government that's lost control of the biggest defence contracts in this nation's history, and that has to change.

So we say to the government that, if they want to be taken seriously, they need to start accounting for where the Defence assets will be built; when they will be built; whether they're built on time or delayed; whether, in fact, they can rein in the spending in relation to these huge Defence contracts; and whether, in fact, defence industry will be provided with sufficient business and employment following from the expenditure in this area. These are the questions that people want to know the answers to, yet to date we've had no answers from the Prime Minister or the defence minister, and for that they need to be condemned.

This is a budget, of course, that's really underlined that the government has managed to put us in almost $1 trillion of debt, most of which happened prior to the pandemic. It also highlights the failure to properly manage defence contracts, which, of course, undermines our national security.

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