David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the Prime Minister please advise the House as to whether he, or anyone acting on his behalf, has entered into an agreement with Prime Minister Abe and/or the government of Japan concerning the future submarine project. If so, what is the nature of such an agreement?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course we are exploring the potential for defence cooperation with Japan. Of course we are exploring the potential for defence cooperation with Japan. Is this another outbreak of xenophobia amongst members opposite? Is this the latest example of the kind of ranting we saw from the Leader of the Opposition at the ASC shipyard a few months ago?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There will be silence on my left. The member for Lingiari and the member for Isaacs will desist.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course we are looking at defence cooperation with Japan. And, yes, we have agreements for defence cooperation with Japan. We openly engaged in those when I was in Japan in about June of last year.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari will desist immediately.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So we are certainly talking to the Japanese about a whole range of defence cooperation—a whole range of defence procurement. But we are not talking just to the Japanese. We are talking to the French. We are talking to the Germans. And we are talking to the Australian Submarine Corporation. That is what sensible governments do.

Members opposite sat on their hands for six years. They sat on their hands for six years. They were just paralysed. So what is happening here is that, yet again, this government is fixing up another bit of Labor chaos. That is what we are doing. More Labor chaos is being fixed up by us.

I will just make the fundamental principles clear. We want the best possible subs for the best possible price. We want the world's best conventional submarines. Who builds them and where they are built will depend upon a competitive evaluation process. That is as it should be. That is what an adult government does. What we have, I am afraid, in this parliament today, is an utterly unprincipled and utterly unscrupulous opposition. They were incompetent in government and now they are determined to be wreckers in opposition. Frankly, this kind of behaviour is just shameful.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There will be silence—and that includes the member for Isaacs and the member for Parramatta.