David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Greens to oppose the Defence Housing Australia Amendment Bill, which is—at least it was honestly referenced by the government—directly intended to spend the Australian public's money to build public houses for US troops under AUKUS. It is utterly astounding that this is the first public housing bill that's been brought forward by the Albanese government in now—what is it?—three and a bit years of government. The only express public housing bill that they've brought forward in three and a bit years is to build public housing for US troops under AUKUS. You could not make this stuff up.

The Greens sought to refer this bill to an inquiry because we thought the Australian public might have an interest in whether or not it is a sensible use of Australian public money to spend heaven knows how much on building houses not for Australians who can't afford them—for people who can't afford to pay the rent, people living in tents or caravans or people who are in crowded or insecure accommodation—but instead for US troops under AUKUS. This won't surprise you, but the war parties, the Labor Party and the coalition, opposed an inquiry into this bill—no doubt because they have at least some vague sense of the sentiment of the country, which would be to overwhelmingly reject this.

The real nub of why this bill is being presented now is that the Albanese government is rushing headlong with the Scott Morrison plan to build the United States a nuclear submarine base just off Perth. The Albanese government has committed $1.7 billion of public money to build the US their nuclear submarine base off Perth—and they want to have that up and running by 2027—so that the United States can save some money and time by sending their submarines on a shorter route into the Strait of Malacca and into the South China Sea to continue the US's warmaking plans against China. That's what the Albanese government is committed to, and they want this base up and running by 2027. They pretend that it's going to be there for Australian nuclear powered submarines and that's why we have to have it running by 2027. On no-one's plan will Australia have a nuclear submarine by 2027. It is so obviously designed to deliver a US nuclear submarine base—and just a US nuclear submarine base.

If you look at the data and the materials coming from, for example, the individual who's just about to be the chief of the US Navy, and if you look at report after report from the Congressional Research Service or the public evidence about the US shipbuilding capacity, Australia will not be getting nuclear submarines in the mid-2030s. Most of the Australian public is already convinced of this. We know we're not going to be getting nuclear powered submarines, but we're still shovelling billions of dollars into the US—tribute payments to Donald Trump. We know that the UK nuclear submarine project is in complete meltdown; their own audit office says that. If we're not going to get nuclear submarines and there's no realistic pathway for us to get nuclear submarines, why are we spending $1.7 billion of taxpayers' money to build a nuclear submarine attack base off Perth? The obvious answer is that that's all a charade for us to be building yet another US base in Australia.

Even US defence hawks point out that, once that base is up and running, it will be a high-priority target in any conflict between the US and any other peer power. It will be a high-priority target. We are literally putting a nuclear target on Perth. Australian taxpayers are paying the $1.7 billion to put that target on Perth not for our own nuclear submarines but to be providing, effectively, an advance base for the US and their nuclear powered submarines.

If that wasn't obscene enough—far from making Australia safe, that whole project is designed to make Australia a target and to enmesh us in the next US war so that we have no choice but to take part in it—now we have the Albanese government saying, 'Not only do we want to make a geopolitical mistake and put a nuclear target on Perth but we want to build public houses for US defence personnel to help deliver that as well.' The estimates are that about 700 homes will be built. 'How much will that cost?' you ask. 'How much are we going to spend to build housing for US troops in Perth?' That's a fair question. One of the reasons we wanted a Senate inquiry into this bill was to ask the obvious questions: How much will it cost, and where is the money coming from? Is the Albanese government going to take it out of the NDIS budget? Are they going to take it out of other housing initiatives? Where is the money coming from, and how much will it cost?

There are no answers from the government on this—no answers at all. In fact, there's some blithe statement somewhere in the government's papers stating that they don't have a cost for this bill. They haven't put forward a cost. They haven't gone to Treasury and asked how much it will cost. It is utterly reckless for the Senate to be passing a bill to build heaven knows how many homes for US troops without understanding how much it will cost or where the money will come from. But the war parties, the coalition and Labor, are so keen to avoid scrutiny on this bill that the coalition are helping Labor rush it through, even though there's no dollar amount attached to it and no source for the funds. That's what happens when you have a lack of rigour and scrutiny around such a major project as AUKUS. You get dangerous rubbish like this being rushed through the Senate without proper inquiry.

The Greens have a second reading amendment, which I foreshadow. This amendment points out that there is no costing attached to this bill. We don't know where the money is coming from. We don't know if it's going to come from stopping families who have kids with autism from being able to get care for their kids. We don't know if it's going to be coming from stopping mums in Townsville who are living in insecure accommodation from getting access to basic shelter. We don't know where the money is coming from. But I'll tell you what: at the end of the day, that is where the money is coming from—from other essential public services that the country needs. Instead of getting those essential public services, the Albanese Labor government have decided they want to build homes for US troops under AUKUS. It is obscene.

When you look at the bill, it's not just US troops that the Albanese government wants to build homes for. The Albanese government also wants to build homes for international weapons companies' contractors. They want to be able to build homes for the employees of Lockheed Martin. They want to be able to build homes for the employees of Boeing. They want to be able to build homes for the employees of Elbit Systems and Rafael, Israeli weapons manufacturers. They want to be able to build homes for pretty much anybody in the war industry, while they're resisting the repeated calls the Greens have made to build homes for Australians who desperately need them.

And then we get this specious, farcical argument from Labor that AUKUS is apparently all about jobs. We have Labor come forward and say, 'Oh, I love this AUKUS thing, this $385 billion war-making plan for nuclear submarines, because it's all about jobs.' They spout this number of 20,000 jobs, right? There's no modelling to show that. There's no evidence that they present that links to 20,000 jobs. They just make the number up and keep asserting it. I challenge Labor to show us the modelling and the data that it produces 20,000 jobs. But, even if that were true, if you're getting 20,000 jobs for $385 billion, the public is spending almost $20 million a pop for every job.

There is no other program in the history of the Australian nation that sees $20 million per job. It is the single worst argument for AUKUS because what we know from all of the modelling about the armaments industry and about the war industry is that, far from generating economic returns, putting money into weapons and killing, sending it to Donald Trump and giving it to Rolls Royce takes money out of our productive economy, takes money from jobs and takes money from critical services, where it can generate economic and social good and lead to a stronger economy and a better society. It takes away from that. You would be better off employing 20,000 people to dig a hole somewhere and fill it in again. You'd get better economic and social returns for that than you would from spending $385 billion on nuclear powered submarines, houses for US troops and a tribute payment to Donald Trump. There would be a better social return for that.

You see moments in this place where the coalition stand up and say, 'Oh, you know, we have small, marginal criticisms about Labor. We're going to complain about how much they spend on defence, but we're going to just push this through without scrutiny—don't you worry about that,' and where Labor steps up and starts misdirecting and saying, 'This is all about jobs. Don't you look here. Nothing to see here.' There is something to see. Whenever these two war parties come together to hide the truth, you know they're doing it for the wrong reasons. In this case, they're rushing this bill through because we know what it's about. It's about indicating to Washington and Donald Trump that Labor and the coalition have always got the US military's back, that they'll always build them houses when they need them, that they'll always shovel billions of dollars of Australian taxpayers' money to US weapon systems and that they'll build them a submarine base off Perth. They don't care if it's going to put a target on Perth, and they don't care where the money comes from.

The war parties take their directions from Washington, and that's what this bill is all about. You may as well have the US Secretary of Defense running this thing, because that's who will benefit from this. It won't be Australians. To hear the coalition come in here and say, 'This is about making Australia safe'—in what world does building a US nuclear submarine base off Perth, housing for US military personnel, housing for a weapons contractor's employees and putting a target on Perth make us safe? In the coalition's mind—and it's shared by Labor—their view for Australia is to just become one big US military base. That's why the war parties, Labor and the coalition, have agreed to station nuclear-capable B-52 bombers at Tindal and to extend RAAF Tindal to put US nuclear-capable bombers there, and they won't tell the public whether there are nuclear bombers there.

That's why Labor and the coalition joined together to expand the footprint of Pine Gap, which we know is sending targeted data to the Israeli military and to the US military and their unlawful strikes on Iran and most likely helping identify kill targets in Gaza. That's why Labor and the coalition are keen to expand North West Cape, another US military base designed to communicate with US submerged submarines. If ever the message comes from Washington to press the doomsday button, to fire off multiple ballistic missiles and destroy life as we know it on this planet, it will come through the North West Cape in Australia, aided by the Albanese government and the coalition. The message will go through the North West Cape. It's critical for the US. That's where the doomsday message will go. And far from shutting it down, Labor and the coalition are expanding it, wanting it to be a principal US space communications base. With this, we have Labor spending $1.7 billion plus, plus, plus to build the US a nuclear powered attack base off Perth. It's not in Australia's interest.

Australia has enormous geopolitical and geostrategic benefits where we are. We don't need to be a part of these US wars. We live in one of the most secure parts of the planet. The coalition and Labor want to run scare campaigns to say that we will be invaded by the Chinese Communist Party and attacked by some nefarious global attack against Australia. We live in one of the most secure parts of the planet, secure from these geopolitical conflicts that the US wants to get us involved in, and, far from using our geography to protect ourselves, the coalition and Labor are inviting us into the next US war. They're making us a US base, a target, and enmeshing our military into the United States military so that we will inevitably be involved in someone else's war, just like they got us involved in someone else's war in Afghanistan, just like they got us involved in someone else's war in Iraq, just like they got us involved in someone else's war in Vietnam. That's what they do. They deliver not for the Australian public; they deliver for Washington. That's what this bill does. Houses for US troops, not houses for Australians who need them. We oppose this bill, and it is extraordinary that the Greens is the only party in this place that will be opposing this bill.