Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The tired, old lies being told by this government have not defended the government on the issue of submarines for the last three months, and they certainly will not get them through the next three months. They can keep trotting out the statement that we did nothing, even when, in estimates, it was agreed that $200 million was set aside and $70 million has actually been spent on the design and the whole process—they can go through all of that—but what is at stake here is the honesty of Mr Abbott and Senator Johnston. They stood in front of the gates of the ASC and said that they would build 12 subs in Adelaide. I have stood right there—in exactly the same spot. I have even shown the Senate the video of Senator Johnston making that promise before the last election.

Where did they start? The government backgrounded all of the media, saying that the Japanese submarine was much better than the Australian submarine on what we were thinking of. Unfortunately, every expert in Australia who knows anything about submarines turned up at a Senate committee to say, 'That's just not true.' Rear Admiral Peter Briggs, one of Australia's pre-eminent submariners, said:

Proposing that you go and buy an off the shelf submarine with a 6,000 mile range, it’s worse than a waste of money, it’s an illusion.

The experts told us that the government's fantasy about buying existing Japanese submarines was an illusion. That is what the experts said, so the government said, 'Oh dear. That one has hit the fence. Let's move on. Cost!' The next backgrounding the government did of all the media was to say it would cost between $50 billion and $80 billion to build the subs here in Australia. What did the experts queue up at the Senate committee to tell us? What did the companies say? The experts at TKMS wrote a letter to the government to try to head off this shonky decision to hand the submarine contract to the Japanese. They said that they could build 12 new submarines in Australia for $20 billion—not the $50 billion to $80 billion advanced by the government but $20 billion. So, when it comes to their excuses, just do not believe the government's lies.

Then the government started going around the country saying, 'We've missed out on how good the Japanese subs were and we've missed out on the cost, because none of that's true. Skills! Australia doesn't have the skills to build submarines.' Well, unfortunately, what did the experts say about that? BAE, the shipbuilders involved in the AWD project, who had to listen to the government make claims about 150 gross man hours per tonne as a productivity rate, say that they are achieving a productivity rate of 76 gross man hours per tonne. But today, yet again the minister stands up and says that Australia, based on the AWD, does not have the skills and cannot get the productivity. Do not let the evidence get in the way of the answers from the Minister for Defence in this chamber!

There is the tender process. Now they are claiming we do not have time because the Collins subs will retire before we will finish building the subs. What does the pre-eminent leading naval shipbuilding expert in this country, Dr John White, say? He is so good that Senator Johnston just received a report that he hired him to write on Australia's shipbuilding industry. What does he say? He says:

There is still sufficient time available, with adequate contingency, for the competitive project design study to be carried out and to build the future submarines in Australia …

Every excuse to break the promise— (Time expired)