Confusion emerged over contract for 12 submarines amid claims PM used project to win leadership votes

TONY Abbott has been accused of lying about the tender process for Australia’s new submarines in order to buy votes during yesterday’s leadership spill.

A26 / CGI

IN a second day of woes Prime Minister Tony Abbott is being accused of using a multi-billion dollar submarine project to win the leadership votes of South Australian Liberals.

On Sunday it was reported that the Prime Minister had promised South Australian Liberal senator Sean Edwards that the project would be decided by “competitive open tender”.

This would mean the Adelaide ship builder ASC could stand a better chance of getting the work ahead of Japanese, Swedish, French and German rivals, with associated job creation.

But today Defence Minister Kevin Andrews had difficulty explaining what he meant by a “competitive evaluation process” to select who will build the 12 submarines.

It emerged the Defence Department, which will manage the allocation of the project, had never heard of the term and couldn’t explain it either.

“I will use the words I choose to use,” Mr Andrews told reporters outside an Adelaide shipyard as he declined to “get into all sorts of definitions”.

But Labor senator for South Australia Penny Wong has accused the Prime Minister of using the project to buy votes in yesterday’s leadership challenge.

“We have a Prime Minister who has lied to buy a vote, a Prime Minister who used a major Defence procurement project to buy a vote and time” she said.

The government denied the Prime Minister lied, but had trouble explaining what exactly the South Australian Liberals had been told by Mr Abbott at the weekend.

And it was being attacked over the handling of what will be one of Australia’s biggest Defence purchases.

Labor’s defence spokesman Stephen Conroy said today there was now widespread confusion on the matter: “No one has a clue what this process involves.”

“What it does not involve clearly is an open competitive tender process so that we can get the best value for the strategic capability that we need,” said Senator Conroy.

“These subs are going to be our biggest defence purchase. They are our most lethal defence asset and Tony Abbott is trading them to Japan, and now to South Australians to save his own leadership.”