Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on an utterly reprehensible situation that the Rudd Labor government has instigated. It is a situation that has left sectors of the Australian defence industry reeling. If a minister were to stand in this House and outline a program which would invest $40 million worth of taxpayers’ money in another country on a piece of defence equipment that our ADF could not use, that minister would be called wasteful. If they stood here and said they would do all that and at the same time deny Australian industry an opportunity to produce a piece of equipment we could use, they would be labelled not only as wasteful but as treacherous. This is exactly what Minister Combet has done in the case of Land 121 phase 4, a $1.5 billion project that aims to replace Australia’s venerable old Land Rover fleet with 1,300 new, better protected vehicles.

I have stood in this House and spoken on this subject before but I did so in the hope that this government would finally come to its senses and reverse its anti-Australian industry policy. Alas, Minister Combet has not done so. In fact, the situation has got much worse and now defence industry is questioning whether or not to even continue with the development of vehicles right here in Australia. Just last week Australian companies that were vying for this critical funding were told that the decision on whether or not to provide them funding would be put back by six months. That means the American program is at least 18 months ahead of any Australian program. If that were not enough, only this morning a report in the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph, which was confirmed by defence officials, stated that the manufacturing of top-secret fabric for Australian defence uniforms would be done in China. Australian industry has had enough of Minister Combet’s hypocrisy. On the one hand he assures local industry he will support them and on the other he actively moves work offshore.

And let us not forget the member for Bendigo, who has been equally unsupportive of the Australian defence industry, even though a major defence company resides within his own electorate. How can Australian companies possibly compete locally, let alone internationally, when Minister Combet has tied their hands behind their backs? Instead of being in a situation whereby Australian industry could export its products globally, they are now left wondering whether or not they can even continue to develop prototype vehicles here in Australia. There is no reason for the funding to be withheld any longer than it already has been. The only conclusion is that Minister Combet is deliberately setting up certain sectors of the Australian defence industry to fail, and no-one knows why. The Australian defence industry deserves better from their minister. They deserve something that I believe in so strongly—that is, equality of opportunity.