Christopher Pyne: Labor’s ship has sailed on defence

As Australia stops to remember those who served and died in conflicts around the globe this Anzac Day, Defence Minister Chris Pyne writes those memories are relevant to this election.

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For all but one of the last 26 years I have attended a local ANZAC Day Dawn Service.

This year, I am representing you at the Anzac Day Dawn Service and myriad other events at Villers Bretonneux in France. It is especially poignant for me, as my great uncle Octavius Pyne was killed at the end of Battle of the Somme in Northern France in World War I in 1917. His brother, Patrick Pyne, was also killed in World War I, at Gallipoli, on the very first Anzac Day on April 25, 1915.

The local Dawn Service has grown and grown in the last quarter of a century. Serried rows of bemedalled Diggers from old wars have given way, through the inevitability of time, to their descendants, and warriors from more recent conflicts. We remember those who didn’t return and those who returned irreparably changed and we thank them for their service.

It’s relevant to this election campaign. Defence has in more recent decades been seen to be largely a bipartisan issue. But while the spirit of bipartisanship is present, we can’t let Labor off the hook quite so easily.

Because under Labor, during their last government from 2007 to 2013, spending on defence as a percentage of gross domestic product fell to 1.56 per cent. The lowest level in Australia since 1938 (the last year of the policy of appeasement of the fascist powers of Europe). In those six years, not one decision was made by the then Labor Government to build one naval vessel in an Australian ship or submarine yard.

It’s a fact that this created the so-called “valley of death” for the ASC workforce at Osborne.

The opposite is true of the Liberal and National Government from 2013 to the present day. Spending on defence will reach two per cent of gross domestic product by 2020, a year earlier than was promised in 2013.

The current government has decided and announced that 54 naval vessels will be built in Australian ship and submarine yards — here at Osborne and at Henderson in WA.

The Guardian Class Pacific Patrol Boats and Arafura Class Offshore Patrol Boats are underway. The new Osborne South Ship Yard is two-thirds complete and the first sod has been turned at the Osborne North Submarine Yard. It’s a $90 billion industry providing world-class military capability to our Navy and reshaping our strategic industrial base.

For SA, it’s bigger than the mines at Olympic Dam. It sets up our state to be the centre of ship and submarine building and maintenance and sustainment for literally decades to come.

Who wins elections does matter — if we South Australians want to ensure the Hunter Class frigates and the Attack Class submarines stay on track, at Osborne, its important a Liberal and National Government stays in power in Canberra. Don’t risk it. Not again.

Defence Minister Christopher Pyne is the outgoing Sturt MP