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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-04 Daily Xml
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Motions

AUKUS

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. D.J. Speirs:

1. That in the opinion of this house, a joint committee be established to inquire into and report on matters relating to South Australia’s contribution to the AUKUS agreement, and particularly to consider—

(a) how to ensure that all submarines are delivered on schedule;

(b) education and training initiatives to build the future workforce;

(c) the role of the South Australian industry;

(d) opportunities from emerging technologies;

(e) the progress of task forces and working groups;

(f) interstate and international partnerships; and

(g) any other relevant matters.

2. That in the event of a joint committee being appointed, the House of Assembly shall be represented thereon by three members, of whom two shall form a quorum of assembly members necessary to be present at all sittings of the committee.

3. That a message be sent to the Legislative Council transmitting the foregoing resolution and requesting its concurrence thereto.

(Continued from 23 March 2023.)

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (11:13): I take the opportunity to speak in parliament today in support of the leader's motion to establish a joint committee, with its key focus being to inquire into and report on matters that relate to South Australia's contribution to the AUKUS agreement. It will consider important facets of this, making sure that the submarines are delivered on schedule and that there are education and training initiatives in place to build the massive workforce that is required.

It will also make sure that the South Australian industry, the defence industry in particular, is capable and able to contribute to and seize opportunities and, importantly, look at some of the advanced technologies that, over the lifespan of this AUKUS agreement, are going to come more and more to the fore. We already know about cyber quantum AI, and we want to make sure we can seize those opportunities. Certainly, we have Lot Fourteen here in South Australia, where there is already a great centre of excellence that South Australia can seize on. Also, invariably there are going to be task forces and working groups set up as part of this, and it is about making sure that they are held to account and are delivering.

The fact that we are even considering these talks is due to the sheer scale of what AUKUS is: AUKUS is an important trilateral security partnership between Australia and some of its foremost allies, the UK and the US. It is as a result of the massive military build-up that is going on in the Pacific and more and more moving into the Indo-Pacific as well, so it is really important, and it recognises the challenges of that.

Of course, the former Morrison government recognised those challenges and, as part of the announcement of this AUKUS security pact, the first initiative was to support Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines and for those nuclear-powered submarines to be built in South Australia. This was a key decision for the nation to shift from conventional-powered submarines to nuclear-powered submarines.

That decision was made and since then we had the announcement by the current commonwealth government in March about how that pathway is going to unfold, how Australia will get nuclear-powered submarines. That is significant and I will touch on the scale of what will be in place. We understand what this means for South Australia, which is why the leader is proposing setting up a committee. It is important that South Australia can make sure it is in the best place to be able to support the nation and also seize those opportunities.

What does that entail? The recent announcement was that Australia would secure three US Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines, with the potential for that to increase to five. That is in the short term. In the medium term, we are looking to build our own submarines based on a UK design, basically the successor to the British Astute class, which is nuclear powered. The first of those are being built in the UK shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness, but then we will build others here in South Australia, so we will not have the first-of-type and those teething problems that invariably result, and we will move on to be able to learn from that and build from that.

That is really fundamental. It is because of the escalating security concerns in our geopolitical region. The first submarine to be built and in the water from Australia's perspective is targeted to be in 2042. That is vital for our national security. One of the first things this committee is really tasked with is making sure that those submarines are delivered on schedule. That is vital. We do that really because South Australia is at the front and centre of Australia's defence posture. It is being an island, being surrounded by sea, and based on a naval posture. It is a massive responsibility for our state to protect the nation.

It is also to reinforce to our allies, the UK and the US, that we have fought alongside—we have just had ANZAC Day and there are still some World War II veterans who fought in the Pacific and who fought in the Middle East alongside the UK—that we are a capable partner not only in the field but in the defence industry that supplies those fighters as well.

South Australia has been selected and we have to make sure that we really support the country. This is going to require a massive workforce as well. Barrow-in-Furness, with their submarine building, has about 11,000 workers. The cadence of their build is going to be a bit quicker than ours. Ours is once every three years, but still the estimates are that the workforce here will be around 9,500. That is just those working directly. Of course, there are indirect workers as well; workforce is going to be a key issue and we need to make sure they are skilled.

We have the former Minister for Skills and Innovation here. He put a massive amount of work into preparing the workforce for our current defence build. There were the conventional-powered submarines we were tooling up for, but then, of course, there is the Hunter class as well. There has already been good work put in by the member for Unley and me as the former Minister for Trade and Investment when I also worked heavily in this field. Workforce is certainly also going to be important.

We have just had ANZAC Day, and I mentioned before that the Defence Strategic Review was handed down the day before that. Again, it reinforced the importance of Osborne shipbuilding here in South Australia to the nation's defence posture. It also recommended continuous shipbuilding, so that certainly can give some comfort to us in South Australia. But what has caused a bit of uncertainty, which does need to be addressed, is that the Defence Strategic Review called for a further review into our surface fleet. That directly impacts South Australia.

As I said before, we have the Future Frigate build here: nine Future Frigates are being built. That in itself is quite a significant industry build-up potentially, starting off with 3,000 workers up to 5,000 workers. That uncertainty is certainly being felt here at the moment, and that is yet to be resolved. At the same time, the Defence Strategic Review also talks about having a minimum viable capability for defence and buying more products off the shelf, so that needs to be looked at.

Yes, our defence national security decision-making is uppermost in the forefront of our mind, but of course we need to make sure that there is a capable defence industry behind that. We need to make sure from a South Australian perspective that there is surety for it. The Defence Teaming Centre has come out and said there is uncertainty in South Australia. It costs hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for these companies to invest in their equipment and to invest in their workforce as well, and there are long lead times to get involved in these projects.

We need to make sure that South Australian companies are able to participate fully to seize the opportunity. I also note that the UK is building this same design. They will have companies that are already in the supply chain over in Barrow-in-Furness. They will be integrated into the supply chain for the next version of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines. We need to make sure that South Australian companies can also participate heavily in that. That is something that we would be looking at for this committee.

Overall, as I have said, it is going to take decades and decades, with the first ship coming in the 2040s, building out to the 2060s. You can see that is over many lifetimes of governments of equal type and, really, the necessity to have bipartisan support on this is very important. That is why we are calling for and it seems that we have, bipartisan support. Certainly, on this side of the house all the commentary from the Premier and the government is that it exists.

This is a great tool to make sure we continue to work in that bipartisan manner. It also gives continuity of institutional knowledge to this parliament over the journey to make sure that we are putting a laser-light focus on AUKUS, especially to make sure it is delivered on schedule. That is vitally important for our nation's security. It would also ensure that this state can seize those opportunities for the workforce, for families who either live here or want to come here to South Australia. It is already the defence state, but this will really reinforce that it is the defence capital of the nation.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.

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