Radio Interview, FIVEAA Breakfast

SUBJECTS: Osborne Shipyard Investment; AUKUS; US tariffs

WILL GOODINGS, HOST: Deputy Prime Minister, good morning to you.

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. How are you?

STACEY LEE, HOST: Yeah, we're good. So, this is extra money and this is to get the shipyards ready for building the ships. This isn't actually money to build any of the submarines.

MARLES: That's right. So, we, we announced back in February, the Prime Minister and the Premier, $3.9 billion as the first instalment of building the submarine construction yard and that is what will build the submarine. And that is something that's going to be actually in the order of $30 billion when it's all said and done. And that'll roll out over the course of the decade. So, it's built in stages. And this morning we're announcing the next part of that, which is $4.6 billion. And so, to give you a sense of this, as I said, it'll be rolled out in stages. The first of those will actually come online in about a year's time and that is so that the building of the submarine itself, the cutting of steel of that, can start this decade, which is only in a few years' time. Right now there's about 1,100 people down at Osborne who are building the construction yard. That's going to grow up to around 4,000 people who will be building the construction yard. And in terms of the building of ships and ultimately the building of the submarine itself, I mean, there's a few thousand people there today. When this is all said and done, there'll be north of 10,000 people working at Osborne and it's the biggest industrial site in the country.

GOODINGS: The scale is impressive. The amount of money being expended in South Australia makes it a very popular project here. It's less popular in other parts of the country. And I wonder, does the Federal Government need to do a better job of not just selling the project, but selling the importance of Australia's Navy? There was a survey that came out in the last week that said, from the University of NSW, of all our defence arms of the Defence Force, the Navy ranked lowest as a funding priority. And yet it's the thing we're spending the most on. Does more need to be done to fix that disconnect between the public's perception of where it's important to spend money and the Federal Government's?

MARLES: Well, look, as I go around, I think people do understand the need for greater capability. I think there is a kind of popular sense, which is fair, that the world feels like it's a challenging and difficult place. And certainly sitting in the seat that I do, I can attest to that. We really do need to have much greater military capability. And at the heart of that actually is the Navy. What we are trying to do in terms of the defence force that we're seeking to build is one that can project and that is all about having a highly capable surface fleet. And so the Hunter-class frigates which are being built down at Osborne are really important to that. But having a long-range submarine capability, not just now, which we have, but into the 2030s and 2040s and beyond, I mean, for a three-ocean nation like Australia is completely essential. And so we need to be doing this. I actually think people, when you take them through it, do understand that. And I mean we get that there's a lot of jobs that are being created here in South Australia and so there's understandably greater awareness of this issue and this project in South Australia than elsewhere. But actually the rest of the country, in a job sense, stands to benefit as well. Like, we don't get these submarines built unless we engage the industrial base of our whole nation. So, there'll be jobs created in Victoria and NSW and Queensland that are being created right now actually to see this happen. So, we're out there making that case and I think when people see this happening and when they know people who are involved in it and they can see the opportunities that are rising, this will become much clearer.

LEE: Deputy Prime Minister, in the last sort of hour and a half, the US President has announced a 12.5% tariff on Australia due to our slavery and modern slavery here in the country. Was this expected? And has anyone from the Federal Government been in touch yet to say, “Hey guys, what?”

MARLES: Well, so this has been spoken about for a while and the answer to that question is that we have been making advocacy around this issue. But the specific news obviously has just broken in the last couple of hours. Look, on the question of modern slavery and forced labour, I mean, we share the ambition of the Trump administration to stamp that out around the world. But be really quick to say we have some of the best laws in the world in respect of this right now. I mean, we have a really strict regime in Australia which prohibits forced labour. And so we are, and for that matter goes back into global supply chains where forced labour might have been used, so we have a really strict regime in respect of that. And when we're talking about tariffs more generally, you know, we want a free global trading system and we want free trade between ourselves and the United States. We've got a free trade agreement between the US and Australia. It's been around since the Howard Government and it's been really important in terms of promoting jobs both in Australia and the United States and the benefits of that. We talk a lot to the Trump administration about wanting to see that trade between our two countries be as tariff-free as possible. And we'll continue to make that case to them.

GOODINGS: The Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, our guest. Thanks for your time.

ENDS