Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join my colleague and good friend Senator O'Sullivan in talking on this issue because it is of such vital importance to our home state of Western Australia. The first point I want to make is that the AUKUS arrangement, as is revealed in its name, is a deepening of the relationship between three countries that have had an extraordinarily strong relationship for decades. In the case of the United Kingdom, it has been for longer.

The relationship between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom and the defence relationship is a key pillar of security for not just Australia but also internationally, and it is vitally important that that coalition legacy is continued. However, sadly, under this government, while we have seen much rhetoric in support of the AUKUS arrangement—something that we absolutely support—there has also been a failure on the ground to progress the key underlying infrastructure that is required to make sure these arrangements can actually take place in a timely fashion in the timeframes that were originally envisaged by the coalition government that entered into these arrangements.

As Senator O'Sullivan rightly pointed out, there are some really basic roads that need to be built or changed to make sure that the scale of the infrastructure can actually be supported. We need to rearrange the Australian Marine Complex to ensure that the berth space, the wharf space, is actually there to carry out the sustainment-type operations that are required in Western Australia for this. We need governments to engage with all aspects of the private sector to ensure that all parts of the very complex system of private-military relationships that will be required actually exist.

For example, there is still debate and decisions to be made on the storage of low-level radioactive waste, and we have a facility in WA that's already approved, already supported, through active land use agreements and the like. It's owned by the company Tellus and is fully compliant to store radioactive material. That exists. Yet, as far as I know—and hopefully this has changed—no conversation has yet taken place with that company. I think it's really important that those sorts of discussions are entered into not in three or four years but now. In fact, they should have been started years ago, but, sadly, this government has been sitting on its hands.

In Western Australia, as my friend and colleague Senator O'Sullivan pointed out, whilst the Cook Labor government has finally seemed to have turned its attention to the needs on the ground, it is happening too late and not with the urgency that is required. Take housing, for example. It's an issue of vital importance when you consider that the relationship requires thousands of people to come to our country from the United States and the United Kingdom and be based in Rockingham and the surrounding areas, but no provision has yet been made. And, at the rate that this government can build houses, I doubt its ability to even get its head around the needs of that Defence housing in a timely way. At the rate they're going and with the amount they're spending to build a few houses under the Housing Australia Future Fund, it makes me deeply worried that they will be completely incapable of doing those basic infrastructure needs that are required to see this arrangement come to fruition not just over time but in a timely fashion that supports the ongoing deepening of our relationship.

But of course AUKUS is not just Pillar I; it's not just submarines. This is what many people either fail to understand or fail to reflect in their comments. It is a deepening of the defence relationship across a number of different areas, and this is something that, in an increasingly dangerous world, will be of vital importance to our safety and security in the years ahead. So we need governments, at both state and federal level, that are aware of risks, are aware of their responsibilities and are willing to actually make the decisions required in a timely fashion to make sure that AUKUS is all it should be. And, sadly, the Cook Labor government, in Western Australia, and the Albanese Labor government here are failing.