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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-08 Daily Xml
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Defence Shipbuilding

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (14:30): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier update the house on his discussions with His Excellency Mr Emmanuel Macron, President of France, and his delegation on how our state's strong relationship with France and the federal Coalition government is creating defence jobs for South Australians?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:30): I would like to thank the member for Heysen for this question. I must say, it was a great honour for me to be invited by the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, to join his party that welcomed the President of France to Australia. This was only the second time the President of France had visited our country, and what an honour and privilege it was. In fact, on the Wednesday, I was in the party that welcomed the President when he inspected HMAS Waller and HMAS Canberra.

During that visit, I had the opportunity to speak to the President about the contract, which has been awarded to the Naval Group for the build of the SEA 1000 future submarines for South Australia. I must say that I was very impressed that the President knew a lot about this enormous contract. I think we often forget this, or maybe don't appreciate this, in Australia. Whilst it is a very big deal to us in South Australia and it is a big deal to us in Australia, it is in fact a very big deal for the French as well. This is the largest single contract they have had in terms of overseas naval construction. It is a very important contract for them, and it is one of national pride.

Part of that visit, of course, was the opportunity to meet with other cabinet ministers who accompanied the President on his visit, senior government officials and very senior members of some of the largest firms in France, who travelled in a fairly large entourage with the French president. It was a great honour to be able to sit down with each of those groups and, if you like, offer our partnership to maximise the opportunities to have a great project for the submarine build in South Australia.

One of the critical things that we talked a lot about was the South Australian government's commitment to ensuring that we had the right skills in place to make sure that we could maximise the South Australian content in this enormous contract. As you would know, sir, there is something like $90 billion worth of naval shipbuilding on the books for South Australia in the decades to come. The reality is we have got to do our work in government to make sure that we have the requisite technical skills in place.

That's why I very proudly, in the lead-up to the election, talked about our commitment to spend $100 million over the forward estimates on creating an additional almost 21,000 new apprenticeships or traineeships, not in total but in addition to what the underlying numbers are in this state, so almost 21,000 new apprenticeships and traineeships. Many of these will be dedicated to naval shipbuilding in South Australia. By having these skills in place, we will maximise the benefit of these contracts to the people of South Australia. If we didn't do this work, then unfortunately much of this work would be done interstate and overseas. This is why it is so crucially important.

It is also important because there are going to be huge numbers of technical skills required in this state moving forward for these contracts. If we don't get the balance right, the supply of these skills right, the shipbuilding contracts could suck up all of those available skills and we could have the perverse effect of skill shortages in other critical areas like manufacturing and agriculture and mining. I know that would concern those opposite just as it concerns us in South Australia. Therefore, we are doing the hard work. We are rolling up our sleeves, making sure the money is available to ensure that we have the right skills in place. This was one of the key commitments in the discussions I had with the French president, his senior cabinet ministers, his government officials and the companies that he led out to Australia on his most recent glorious visit to Australia.

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