Submarine maintenance spat could threaten Coalition's crossbench support, page-2

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bruceyg

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13/08/19

08:48

Post #: 39970721
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Originally posted by raiderup ↑

Submarine maintenance spat could threaten Coalition's crossbench support

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds has left the door open to shifting maintenance for Australia's Collins class submarines to WA after the state's defence issues minister Paul Papalia went public with a pitch for the work.
But a decision to relocate "full cycle docking" to the west would create political angst in South Australia, where the complete maintenance program is now located, and cross-bench senators have issued a veiled threat to Prime Minister Scott Morrison threatening to thwart his legislative agenda if he fails to issue an assurance the work would stay put.
In Perth on Monday, Senator Reynolds said no decision on a move been made, but said she had been working with the governments of both states and Australia's $90 billion shipbuilding plan would create industrial opportunities and jobs on both sides of the border.
"I have been a very passionate advocate for our state but now as the minister for defence I've also got to make sure that any decision we take is in our nation's interest," she said.
"And fortunately in this case, what is good for our nation in naval ship building is not only good for South Australia, it is also great for Western Australia because we have two very capable naval ship building centres in this country.
"Both states under our naval ship-building plan will benefit and will grow significantly and both locations will have thousands of multi-generational jobs to sustain this industry."
Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick, who has been campaigning for the work to stay in South Australia, said the case to move didn't stack up.
He said there would be political pushback on the federal government from South Australia.
"Don't try and fix what is not broken," he said.

disallowed/politics/federal/submari...ion-s-crossbench-support-20190812-p52gb1.html

What's broken ,is the stranglehold SA has on federal government contracts.

Their own government says they wont have the people to fill the job vacancies.

Raider

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drop the project all together.

this has nothing to do with the nations security - its purely about votes and nothing more.
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