Govt to announce local warship build

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has suggested an $89 billion ship building program will centre on South Australia, however, he has stopped short of guaranteeing the future of the state’s submarine industry.

What’s under consideration are replacements for the Navy’s workhorse Anzac frigates that reach retirement from about 2025.

The plan is understood to comprise $39 billion for ships and $50 billion for submarines and would sustain about 1000 jobs, the Adelaide Advertiser reports.

But he said the workforce should rebuild to at least 2500 ongoing positions by 2020.

While Mr Abbott did not put specific numbers on how many jobs or how many dollars would flow to South Australia’s besieged shipyards, he said a review of ASC’s shipbuilding capacity would assess how it could best work into the government’s long-term plans for Naval ships.

Mr Abbott said the government’s new shipbuilding program would ensure there was never again a “valley of death”.

A Japanese government team is in talks with Britain’s Babcock global Group and BAE Systems, Reuters reported last month, in response to Australia’s desire to have as much domestic participation in the project as possible.

“Well we hope the announcement isn’t just a one-ship project in isolation”, he said.

He said that decision would save more than 500 jobs.

In that time, shipbuilders have no choice but to lay off hundreds of skilled workers, as is now happening in Adelaide, Melbourne and Newcastle.

“We’ve been putting a lot of effort into explaining to the Commonwealth the size of the challenge the urgency of the challenge and the fact that up to this point we haven’t been receiving the attention of the national government”, he said.

A commitment to naval shipbuilding in SA could not come at a better time for the state, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing the state with an unemployment rate of 8.2 per cent in June – its worst jobless rate in 15 years and the highest in the country.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott speaking in Adelaide today.

Federal Opposition leader Bill Shorten at BAE systems shipyard on Tuesday.

“You need critical mass in the industry and that would also need to involve building the submarines as promised”, he told ABC radio.

“This money should go to Australian shipyards, not just in Adelaide but throughout the nation, they should be based upon prioritising Australian jobs in the national security of Australia”, Mr Shorten said.

Victorian Industry Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the 2018 and 2020 shipbuilding orders were too late to save jobs in Melbourne.

According to Mr Abbott, this would save a further 400 jobs which would otherwise have been lost.