National Defence

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (14:24): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on how South Australia is supporting the delivery of national defence capabilities?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:24): I thank the member for Gibson for her question. The member for Gibson has a background representing engineers in our state who have a great interest in what happens to the naval shipbuilding program, particularly the submarine program, and it has been an eventful period since the parliament met because, of course, President Trump announced his intentions to conduct a 30-day review of AUKUS. More than that, there was a timely event in that regard yesterday in Canberra, where News Corp facilitated the Defending Australia program, which is principally organised by The Advertiser, but also The Australian, and I thank Gemma Jones and Michelle Gunn for their efforts because it was a bipartisan forum. There were people from both sides of politics there, and a lot of senior members of the military and, also critically, the defence industry. I am not too sure there's a forum quite like it that I have been witness to, to debate all these issues in such a broad way.

The Minister for Defence and Space Industries was there with me yesterday, and it did encourage, I think, some thought about how we continue to tackle this challenge going forward. The reality is, in this day and age, defence posture and foreign affairs policy is going to be increasingly impactful in the way the country operates, but also in terms of opportunities in South Australia economically. What yesterday's forum made abundantly clear, and I think we should have an increased sense of confidence around, particularly with respect to the submarine program, is that this is going to happen because there's no world in which it can't. As tragic as that may be, there is no world where we can't build submarines for ourselves as a nation and that, of course, has to be in Adelaide.

Our job, as South Australian political leaders, is to make sure we are investing our effort to translate that opportunity into a better life for South Australians economically by making sure that young women and men are getting the skills to be able to participate in this industry of tomorrow, which, of course, will have an ancillary positive impact on other industries around it, whether it be in the sciences, in the health sciences, in other engineering fields and the like, which is where we are really doubling down our effort.

But there are also opportunities for South Australian enterprise to increasingly participate in the supply chain for the defence industry globally as well, which is something that we are investing a fair bit of effort and money into. Only in the recent state budget, the minister and Treasurer allocated yet more resources to this endeavour. It is something that enjoys bipartisan support, I am aware. I take this opportunity to reflect on the fact that naval shipbuilding in South Australia is a cause that has been pursued by successive governments, of all political persuasions, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition for his support and steadfast support for naval shipbuilding in South Australia.

We are pursuing this, and I think South Australians, while I appreciate would be interested, if not concerned by the Trump review—I invite people to contemplate this: there has barely been a moment since AUKUS's inception where there haven't been questions about its future, particularly given there has been change of administrations or political hues in all three countries. This potentially provides a line-in-the-sand moment about what happens to AUKUS in the future. That might yet be a silver lining that comes out of this review. Either way, we are confident in South Australia we will be building submarines here and we continue to get on with the task of making sure that we are prepared to do exactly that.