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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-19 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Defence Shipbuilding

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier spoken to the federal Minister for Defence about the surface fleet review and inquired as to whether that review will be made public? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: It is now known that the surface fleet review has been finalised and it has been provided to the Minister for Defence, Richard Marles.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:01): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The short answer is, yes, I have spoken to the Minister for Defence on a number of occasions regarding the surface ship review.

As has been explained in the parliament on previous occasions, we also made the effort as a state government—and I think we might be unique in this regard—in actually making a formal submission to that review advocating for the objectives of South Australians for the continuous nature of the ship build, which of course is a recommendation that came out of the Defence Strategic Review itself, but, more than that, we were explicit in that submission to the commonwealth about the price that would be paid in the event that the Hunter class program wasn't continued with. I am not aware of any speculation that that will be the case, but the nature of the review I think demands that we put that on the record in any event.

In regard explicitly to the release of the review, I anticipate that the commonwealth will publicly release the outcomes of that review in terms of the detail of the review and the process. That, of course, will be a decision for the commonwealth.

In terms of the timing, this is something that we have a great interest in and I have left the federal government, including the Deputy Prime Minister, with no lack of clarity around our hope that this is released sooner rather than later. From our perspective, the clock is ticking on the federal government here. We want to see the outcomes.

We will not be a state government that is not willing to stand up for the state's interests just because those in charge in Canberra happen to be from the same political persuasion as myself, and we do want to see the outcomes of this review. We do think that the Hunter class program needs the public assurance that the surface ship review hopefully provides and that it says this program is being continued with and should be built at pace. We have made our position clear on this. We are steadfast about it. I look forward to its public release.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We are hoping that the federal government gets cracking on announcing the outcome of it and we will continue to advocate accordingly.

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