Adelaide submarine decision to come 'shortly’, but likely after election

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised a decision on the construction of 12 submarines will be made “shortly” and told sacked Adelaide shipbuilding workers to blame Labor for their plight.

Illustration of the Shortfin Barracuda submarine the French company, DCNS, wants to provide to Australia.

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PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised a decision on the construction of 12 submarines will be made “shortly” and told sacked Adelaide shipbuilding workers to blame Labor for their plight.

Mr Turnbull on Sunday said the three-way race between French, German and Japanese companies to construct the Future Submarines would soon conclude — but a decision might not be announced until after the federal election if an early double dissolution poll is held on July 2.

“The government will make a decision shortly,’’ Mr Turnbull told Sky News.

“But whether it is before the election obviously depends on the timing of the election.”

The Government is under pressure to announce before the election a preferred tenderer and how much of the submarine building work will be in Adelaide. Mr Turnbull said the decision should not be rushed.

“You can rest assured that the decision will be taken with great care — a huge amount of work has gone into to it to date,’’ he said.

Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten addressed a rally of shipbuilders in Adelaide on Saturday, including some workers from government-owned shipbuilder ASC whose positions are being made redundant.

Mr Turnbull said the Government was being forced to play catch-up on naval shipbuilding because of a lack of action during the previous Labor government.

“The reason why so many of the shipyard workers that Shorten was addressing are likely to be out of work for a period is because Labor failed to keep the process of commissioning and constructing ships for the navy under way,’’ he said.

Labor Senate Leader Penny Wong criticised Mr Turnbull’s comments about the sacked workers.

“Every job lost at ASC has a devastating impact on the worker involved, their family and our community,” she said.

Senator Wong aid former prime minister Tony Abbott has dumped a Labor-developed plan that would have maintained defence industry capacity.

Mr Turnbull on Sunday also said premiers should stop asking the Federal Government for more money after they last week rejected his proposal for state income taxes to be reintroduced in Australia.

Mr Turnbull said the states should focus on the spending the funds they do have more efficiently.

“If they (premiers) don’t want to raise taxes and we don’t want to raise taxes then what that means is we have to make sure the dollars we are raising are spent more efficiently in order to deliver the great services that Australians expect,’’ he said.

Mr Turnbull said computer apps could empower citizens to monitor how education, health and police services were performing and how much governments were spending on them.