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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-07 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Hunter Class Frigate Program

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier relaxed about the prospect of job losses associated with a reduction in scope of the Hunter class shipbuilding program? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: On 5 February 2024, a number of news reports claimed that the Premier was relaxed that the federal Labor government reduced the Hunter class frigate program from nine to six. Today's speculation in the media suggests that the build could be as low as three.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:07): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, although it misrepresents a range of factors, and I think anyone that's been paying attention to my remarks would be aware of that. The government is unapologetic about our pursuit of a continuous ship-build here in South Australia, and we have been very clear with the federal government that we believe the Hunter class program is the only option available to the federal government to achieve that. We in no way could be characterised as relaxed—I think was the word that the Leader of the Opposition used—about job losses; the opposite is true.

What we are doing is fighting not to ensure but to actually realise the potential job gains that have been on the cards down at Osborne forever. The Leader of the Opposition would do well to avail himself of some facts, as would the shadow minister, and that is that if these frigates are going to be built, then what we need is a massive budget allocation to achieve that end. Everything else otherwise is sort of somewhat immaterial. We know that there are significant deliberations the federal government has to make to achieve that because up until this point it hasn't occurred.

We want as a state government—and we are putting ourselves out there on this; we are sending a very clear message to the federal government, both the current federal government and any iteration that follows—the Hunter class program built. We want a sustained number of frigates to be committed to and funded to be built so that continuous shipbuilding can be achieved. We know, as I said yesterday, that six of the frigates committed to take us to the late 2030s, and that would give the commonwealth time to honour its commitment around continuous shipbuilding with different variants of the Hunter class or an AWD or some other major platform to follow.

What we also know is that anything short of that puts the commonwealth in a position where it is compromised; that is, we believe it would leave it in a very difficult position to actually honour the continuous shipbuilding commitment they have signed up to. That is why we have been forthright and somewhat assertive about our campaign on the issue.

I recall a time when predecessors of mine would be somewhat tempered in their public remarks towards a prime minister or a government of the same political stripe—not me, sir, not me. What we are doing is getting out there, we are advocating, we are sending a clear signal to this federal government—albeit a Labor one—that we expect the continuous shipbuilding promised to be honoured, honoured in full and honoured in funding. That requires a serious commitment now in terms of dollars allocated in the budget to build these frigates, build them in South Australia, and to get on with the job. We will continue to fight for that.

We keenly await the announcements of the review; we want the review to be released. The review was supposed to be released last year, but we are still waiting for it, so we are critical of the federal government in that regard, and we desperately hope they get on with the task.

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