Sydney harbouring a grudge over SA’s submarine build success

SPITTING the dummy like a torpedo, some people over the border are clearly sour over the choice of South Australia as the construction site for the nation’s new submarines.

• $50bn Future Submarines to be built at Osborne in Adelaide by French firm DCNS
• South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill says decision to build 12 French-designed submarines in Adelaide will kickstart jobs ‘immediately’
• Adelaide at heart of all major naval shipbuilding acquisitions for decades to come
• David Leyonhjelm: We need state-of-the-art submarines, not just more handouts to SA

SPITTING the dummy like a torpedo, some people over the border are clearly sour over the choice of South Australia as the construction site for the nation’s new submarines.

Under a headline pun that calls us a “substandard” state (hilarious), The Advertiser’s sister paper in Sydney, The Daily Telegraph, whinges that “Malcolm Turnbull has saved hapless South Australia from falling off the map, committing a mammoth $50 billion so the state can build a dozen world-class submarines”.

It gets cattier.

How the Daily Telegraph covered the subs announcement on Page 8 of their paper on Wednesday.

The Advertiser’s front page on Wednesday.

Political reporter Daniel Meers writes that “the failed state (that’s us, apparently) will receive taxpayer-funded billions over several decades to avoid going into virtual liquidation and unemployment rising into double digits”.

The Tele’s story goes on to quote some researcher who reckons the whole country would have been better off if the subs had been built overseas, and makes the point that Tony Abbott, who was a prime minister but now very much isn’t, had made a "handshake agreement” to give the whole deal to the Japanese.

And then there’s a little accompanying list of what the Tele calls SA’s “history of failure”.

They were scratching a bit on that one, finding only four items, one of them the new RAH, just because its expensive, and another the Multifunction Polis, an idea that was around three decades ago but never got off the ground.

Never mind, Sydney. You haven’t won any shipbuilding, but you do get all the tourism dollars because you’ve still got that nice harbour of yours. And all those little sailboats on it.

Cartoonist Jos Valdman’s view.

Malcolm Turnbull making their announcement in Adelaide flanked by Industry Minister Christopher Pyne and Defence Minister Marise Payne. Picture: Tait Schmaal.