Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Carr for his question. There is no question of any misleading being done whatsoever. What the material which is being referred to says, and says sensibly, is that in the planning process a build of future submarines that will be undertaken in South Australia has to be examined in terms of the size of the build that is required to be done, the size of the infrastructure that is required to be established at Osborne and so on. I referred to a number of those matters in my answer to a question from Senator Patrick today. What is most interesting is the only reason we can have a discussion about this issue is that this government is getting on with the job of delivering a future submarine capability for Australia, unlike those opposite who in the entire time of their period in office did not place one single order for one vessel built in Australia for the Royal Australian Navy, not one.