Ministerial Statement

French Defence Visit

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:01): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: During the week beginning 16 October, the state government led a delegation of South Australian businesses in the defence industry and the food, wine and beverage industries to Paris to attend two separate world-leading tradeshows. Euronaval 2016 is the world's largest defence exhibition. The Defence SA stand at the expo is giving 27 South Australian-based companies a high-profile presence on the global stage of naval shipbuilding. They were also joined by South Australian tertiary education providers including TAFE SA, Adelaide University, Flinders University, University of South Australia and StudyAdelaide.

SIAL Paris is also the biggest expo of its kind and allows food, wine and beverage businesses to showcase their products to an international audience and for important new relationships. In addition to the industry participants, the delegation also included myself, the South Australian Governor, our defence minister, Food SA Chief Executive Officer Catherine Sayer and Defence SA Chief Executive Andy Keough.

This significant South Australian representation highlights just how important both these sectors are to our economy, and the valuable opportunities to meet new business partners, potential buyers, distributors and agents. While at Euronaval, we met with key players involved in delivering South Australia's sovereign capability in shipbuilding that will be based in Adelaide. These meetings were held with Damen, Lurssen, DCNS and Fassmer on Monday, and BAE, Lockheed Martin and Austal on Tuesday.

We had the opportunity to spend a number of hours with the Chief Executive of DCNS, Herve Guillou, and the company's deputy chief executive officer, Marie-Pierre De Bailliencourt, in two separate meetings held over two days. During these meetings, significant discussions took place about the next step in relation to the Future Submarine contract in South Australia. The French have assured us that while the road map is clear there are some early challenges in fulfilling the mission to deliver Australia's capability.

While discussions are progressing well between DCNS and the commonwealth, the critical issue for the future success of the project both for South Australia and the nation is securing a workforce which is skilled and able to perform the tasks needed. The urgency and magnitude of this task has emerged as one of the key challenges of the Future Submarines project. While the workforce winds down at shipbuilder ASC as the end of the third air warfare destroyer construction nears, ironically the biggest challenge for this project will be workforce shortages and the skilling up of SA workers to participate in the project.

The success of this project for South Australia lies in our ability to secure as many jobs for South Australians as possible. This will require a collaborative effort between DCNS (which is the selected builder), the commonwealth government, the state government and training organisations. This is a discrete project in its own right which needs to be properly resourced and receive special attention. To this end, I have written to the Prime Minister today asking him to put the national submarine project on the COAG agenda for discussion. I will be requesting that the outcome of COAG will be to create a workforce development plan where the state and federal governments and the submarine designer and builder are genuine partners.

The workforce development plan should include the role of the future patrol boats and future frigate project in maintaining employment and capability for our ship and submarine building projects. The success of the future submarine project, and realising the French offer to transfer sovereign submarine building capability to Australia, will in large measure depend on a successful workforce development plan. This will include a focus on maintaining as many jobs as possible for the existing workforce at Osborne.

The commonwealth has requested that the South Australian government contribute our $350 million Techport infrastructure to the shipbuilding and submarine building project. The South Australian government is willing to consider this request, but important conditions will be around a return on the state's investment and the commonwealth's commitment to a genuine partnership with the South Australian government, which must include a workforce development plan directed at maximising jobs and opportunities for Australian workers.