Christopher Pyne: How defending our nation has lead to Adelaide’s new gold rush
Adelaide is in the midst of a new gold rush - and it’s mostly down to the benefits from enormous investment in national security, says Christopher Pyne.
Opinion
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Protect the Nation.
No society can exist without a healthy economy.
There are many reasons Adelaide and SA are great places to be right now.
One of the most important is the Defence Industry.
On Tuesday the Defence Minister, Richard Marles and the Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy announced the Australian Government’s response to the long awaited review of Australia’s Surface Fleet.
It sounds esoteric to most South Australians.
But if you look around our city and take comfort in the growth in population, the new high rises on the CBD horizon, the blossoming of Lot 14, low unemployment, real economic growth and the evident vibrancy in our hospitality and entertainment precincts, one of the reasons for all of that is the fact that SA is benefiting from the enormous investment in national security going on in Australia since 2015.
There are young people training in project management, engineering, science, maths, trades and technology.
There are middle aged South Australians retraining in the same areas.
It’s a new gold rush.
The Labor Government’s Tuesday unveiling confirms the previous Coalition Government’s continuous ship building program with tweaks.
The Hunter Class anti submarine warfare frigate program is confirmed to deliver six ships, reduced from nine.
The good news for the 1400 South Australians employed by BAE Systems who are building the Hunter Class right now, at the brand spanking new ship yard at the Osborne Naval Shipyard, is that they will build the three replacement ships for the Air Warfare Destroyers – to be built at Osborne once the Hunter Class is completed.
BAE Systems is the only ship builder at Osborne, so they would be hard pressed to miss out.
If the Government keeps its promises, the Henderson Shipyards in Perth will be big winners.
They are already building the Arafura Class Offshore Patrol Vessels.
There will now be six not twelve. That’s a downer. And they will be used for non military purposes in the South Pacific and South East Asia.
But they are now building Landing Craft in addition to the Arafura Class and the Heavy version is 5000 tonnes, which is a big ship.
But our Western Australian friends should be happy – they will either assemble or build the future General Purpose Frigates and the Large Optionally Crewed Vessels that are the centrepiece of the Government’s announcement – so long as the Government isn’t convinced to build all of those overseas.
If they don’t build them in Henderson, that will represent a significant downgrading of our sovereign defence capabilities.
The Opposition must hold them to account on that score.
Significantly, at The Advertiser Defending Australia Surface Fleet Review 2024 Briefing on Tuesday, Marles stated that the National Budget would include $1.7 billion over the next four years and $11.1 billion to the early 2030s of new spending on surface ships.
This is in addition to the submarine program for AUKUS.
It is projected to take our spending on defence to 2.4 per cent of GDP by the early 2030s.
Let’s hope there is no backsliding from that commitment.
But given the very real challenges posed by China to the established order in the Indo Pacific region of which we are a part, that will be hard to do.
In the next few months the HMAS Anzac, the first of the Australian built guided weapons frigates upon which we currently rely, will be retired – she has served us well over twenty eight years.
The fleet that will replace the ANZAC Class will have to step up to even greater challenges in a more unruly and unpredictable world.
China, North Korea, Iran, Russia and their satellites are testing the resolve of the Western democratic world of which we are a part.
Putting aside the day to day political point scoring that goes hand-in-hand with our news cycle, I for one hope that the Government’s decisions that affect our national security will strengthen our ability to protect our people, our freedoms and our values.
■ Christopher Pyne was a Coalition cabinet minister from 2013-2019
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