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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-22 Daily Xml
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Submarine Contract

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:30): It may not be legal in some venues until tomorrow, but we have seen a lot of dancing by many politicians recently. Images of dancing politicians is not something that often serves as a good metaphor in speeches, but today I think it is very apt. We have seen a lot of tap dancing this week by many politicians so that they can get their five seconds of sunshine. From our PM Scott Morrison, it was five seconds on the world stage where not only was he dancing to someone else's tune, but the fact is no-one even bothered to remember his name.

We also saw a lot of dancing back home, where local Liberals, who previously had happily said we could not even build a canoe, could not now wait to bask in the five seconds of uranium-powered sunshine. But like so many pollies, like Hockey and Rudd in 2004, who danced to tunes that so quickly drop out of fashion, we may all soon be asking ourselves: where is the love?

The fact is that the current announcement is the single biggest loss of jobs since the Liberals closed Holden in South Australia. There are 750 South Australians who now find their jobs in limbo as the announcement to kill off the now somewhat ironically named Attack-class submarines was blasted out of existence by foreign leaders. Scenes of our Premier actually celebrating the demise of a $90 billion project, which was set to cut steel next year, without so much as a nod to the workers, let alone the French, with hundreds of workers now working in France, beggars belief.

While footage of the American President started rolling, while he was forgetting our PM's name, our Premier was actually, as usual, presumably getting faxed the dancing instructions from Canberra. No doubt, those instructions would have made one thing very clear, and that is: 'Don't mention the war.' Do not mention the thousands of jobs that we just scrapped. Do not mention the billions we have already spent getting the subs project that we just scrapped, money now wasted—do not mention that.

Do not mention our largest trading partner in China and definitely do not mention the French. Do not mention the fact that less than two years ago our Premier stood alongside industry, defence officials, foreign diplomats and our PM to celebrate an alleged 2,800 jobs that were going to be created with the 12 submarines of a $90 billion contract that we were going to deliver, starting next year. All gone. Do not mention any of it.

The fact is, our Premier and the local Liberals should have heeded that excellent political dancing and, frankly, relationship advice to 'dance with the one that brung ya'. Whilst we do not ever want to endorse the now well-known American maxim of 'known knowns', the fact is there are more questions about ScoMo's new deal than there are new jobs created.

The PRESIDENT: The honourable member ought to refer to the Prime Minister by his proper name and title.

The Hon. R.A. Simms: Who?

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: Who? An adequate question, Mr Simms.

The PRESIDENT: The Prime Minister.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: The Prime Minister. Instead, we are told by Steven Marshall, our Premier, to wait 18 months while the Prime Minister—who likes to call himself ScoMo—works out the detail. Put simply, this should have already been sorted out before the Liberals scrapped the deal.

It is basic common sense, things like: how many jobs will the project now deliver? What is the cost of the new subs project? When will work begin on the new subs project? Has anyone spoken to the EU to make sure walking out on a $90 billion project, literally almost a decade in the making, will not affect other trade deals that we have with them? Why is our Premier, once again, waiting by the phone for someone else to tell us their plan for South Australia? With thousands of jobs lost and a $90 billion project gone with nothing to replace it yet, where is Steven Marshall's plan for South Australia?

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