LEON BYNER: Penny Wong is one of our Senators on Labors side, shes also the Acting Opposition Leader. Penny, whats your reaction to we understand theres going to be an announcement today, in the morning, hopefully by about 11.00 from the Defence Minister about the submarines. Do you have any inside running on this?
PENNY WONG, ACTING LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Well, the signals arent good for South Australia, Leon. The signals are that the Governments setting to break a promise to South Australians that Tony Abbott made very clear before the election, that we would get the submarines built here in South Australian and we would get 12 submarines built, and theyd get on with the job. What the signals are now with the Government moving away from that commitment, not only in terms of the number of submarines but also in what sort of submarine were looking at. And theyre suggesting that instead of a commitment to build the submarines here in Adelaide that we might look at buying them off the shelf from Japan.
BYNER: Ok. Now again, theres not been anything said or clarified about this. What are the signals that theyre moving away, in your view?
WONG: Two things. I think one is that all of a sudden the language is moved from a commitment to an aspiration, and the Defence Minister yesterday was reported to say that all bets are off when it comes to options for submarines. Now if thats the case, thats a very clear breach of an election commitment. But look, its more than that. This is about jobs here in South Australia, its about critical skills here in South Australia, its about our national security. Its about all of these things, which as you know are particularly important in light of Holdens going. We do need to make sure we have this advanced manufacturing, high-level engineering capability here in South Australia, and the only way you do that is to make sure you continue having a shipbuilding industry here.
BYNER: Ok, so are you going to endeavour to put pressure on the Government to account for this?
WONG: We certainly will. In fact, before the election I made the point as did other people in the Labor Party that Tony Abbott wasnt making this commitment. He eventually, under pressure, did. He eventually said, he tried to dance around it a long time, but he eventually said yes, were committed to building the 12 submarines here in Adelaide. Thats the commitment he took to the election and unfortunately what were seeing after the election appears to be a walking away from that promise. Thats bad, but its particularly bad for jobs here in South Australia
BYNER: Penny, thank you for joining us today.
ENDS
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