Joint Strike Fighter Maintanence Announcement

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: So today I'm very pleased to be able to announce that the United States' Joint Project Office for the Joint Strike Fighter has selected Australia to be the Asia-Pacific hub for maintenance and sustainment of componentry for the Joint Strike Fighters operating in our region, and the global maintenance and sustainment hub for three particular components for all Joint Strike Fighters operating around the world.

This is a particularly good-news announcement for defence industry in Australia. It proves that we have significant defence industry capability. It was a competitive process; Australia was one of four countries chosen throughout the world to be the hubs for maintenance and sustainment of Joint Strike Fighters. People might be aware that there'll be 3000 Joint Strike Fighters eventually across the world. It is a $1.5 trillion project. Australia is buying 72 of the Joint Strike Fighters, which we're helping to build. We're a partner country in the Joint Strike Fighters, and this reflects that the work that we've done in the Government, and of course in the defence industry, has been successful in convincing the United States that we are the best place in the Asia-Pacific to do this kind of maintenance and sustainment. This builds on the decision that the United States made to make Australia the hub for Asia-Pacific engine repairs a little while ago, and the Southern Pacific hub for the repairs of frames of the Joint Strike Fighters. The next big ticket item was the componentry: things like avionics and the pilots' helmets, the landing gear, et cetera - all very high value materials - and we've won that contract. They've also now put out publically requests for interest in warehousing as a hub, and also the non-air vehicles that service the Joint Strike Fighters on bases.

So this builds on the Government's successes so far in defence industry and Defence in the last four months: The signing of the contract with DCNS for the design of the submarines; the choosing of Lockheed Martin as the combat system integrator for the submarines; the structural separation of the Australian Submarine Corporation, the ASC, and we are getting on with the job; the down select of Rheinmetall and BAE of the Land 400 project, the armoured combat reconnaissance vehicles.

Now, we've made more decisions in the last four months than Labor made in six years, and today builds on that story. I was in Washington not long ago, I think three weeks ago, for the very purpose of meeting with their Secretary of Defence and the people in the Pentagon who made these decisions, and I very strongly pressed Australia's case for being the maintenance and sustainment hub for the Joint Strike Fighters in componentry, and so I'm very pleased that that trip has borne fruit.

JOURNALIST: Can you be more specific about exactly where that hub will be? Will it be in South Australia?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, there are a range of places that will benefit from being the maintenance and sustainment hub. Adelaide is one of them. I'm happy to give you a list of those if you like, but they'll be places like BAE Systems in Williamtown, where some of this work is done now. BAE Systems is also in South Australia, in Northern Adelaide as you'd know; GE Aviation in Brisbane, Raytheon in Brisbane; the Common Joint Facility in Williamtown, also in North Sydney at Rockwell Collins, which is a business there; Quickstep in Western Sydney; RUAG in Western Melbourne, TAE in Adelaide, in Hindmarsh, in the electorate of Hindmarsh; RUAG at Amberley, which of course is in Brisbane, and RUAG at Bayswater in Victoria. So the benefits will be spread right around Australia.

This builds, of course, on the $800 million that we've already received in value from the Joint Strike Fighter program through 30 businesses around Australia making parts for the Joint Strike Fighter, not just for the ones that Australia will be buying, but for all the Joint Strike Fighters. So there's a company in Brisbane, for example, called Ferra Engineering that makes the clasps for the weapons and the bombs on the Joint Strike Fighter, for all of the Joint Strike Fighters that are being built in the world. So it is a truly global program, and in the same way the benefits from this announcement will flow not just into one particular part of Australia, but right around Australia.

JOURNALIST: Donald Trump has said- he suggested that he might can the whole project if he wins. Is that possible, and what would that mean for this?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the project is very far advanced, of course. There are right now Joint Strike Fighters being tested in Arizona, and there are Australian pilots and groundsmen in Arizona testing the planes. So the project is very far along the track. There are orders for 3000 Joint Strike Fighters, and the issues in the earlier part of the program, as there often are issues in these kinds of very large Defence projects, have well and truly been ironed out. And the Joint Strike Fighter forms a very important part of the strategic weaponry of the United States and its allies around the world, of which we are one. So trying to reverse out of that project would be well nigh impossible, and we'll know of course tomorrow whether that could possibly even come to pass.

JOURNALIST: The F-35B variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, there's a report out today that one of those last month caught on fire, causing $2 million of damages, or something, in an incident. Does that concern you, that there are still incidents?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think that was the incident in South Korea, is that right?

JOURNALIST: That might be right, yeah.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah. Well, there's a testing process going on. When you test any kind of piece of equipment, from the smallest widget, right through to aircraft carriers when they do their sea trials, you find out things about what needs to be done to improve them and what could go wrong. So in fact, while that's an unfortunate incident, it doesn't throw the whole program into doubt, because the very purpose of testing is to iron out particular problems. But there's no doubt that the Joint Strike Fighter will be the most lethal weapon in the air around the world, and it's very important that Australia is part of it, and it was a very far-sighted decision of Brendan Nelson, when he was the Defence Minister in the Howard Government, to become part of it as a partner.

We are the only partner of the Joint Strike Fighter program in the Asia-Pacific. The other countries that are taking the Joint Strike Fighter, like South Korea and Japan, potentially Singapore and maybe others, are all foreign military sales clients, if you like, of the project. So that is important from our point of view, and I think one of the reasons why we are being quite successful in making Australia the regional hub for maintenance and sustainment. It's also important, of course, because our region is quite unstable, and as people talk about the South China Sea, of course, and North Korea, the Philippines, the issues that are occurring there today, and having this capability to maintain and sustain our own Joint Strike Fighters as well as those of other countries and the United States in particular is a very important strategic capability, and the fact that we've been given the tick for this project is a big vote of confidence in our defence industry capability, because we would not have beaten the other countries in this competition if the United States felt that we weren't capable of actually delivering the high quality maintenance and sustainment that's necessary for these obviously very complex aircraft.

JOURNALIST: What are the other three regional hubs?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I can get you the detail, but I'm certain one is Norway, but we can get you the detail of those. I think one is the Netherlands. So the UK, the Netherlands, and we'll get you the other two, if you like. They're probably in my notes here, but that would be easier to get it to you afterwards.

JOURNALIST: Minister, the plebiscite is dead in the water. What are your hopes for same-sex marriage now?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, obviously it's a great pity that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party think that playing politics is more important than marriage equality. As an advocate for marriage equality, I'm very disappointed that Bill Shorten has cut off the opportunity for marriage equality, which could have been in place by March next year under the plebiscite model, assuming the public voted in the way that they indicate in the polls. So the person who bears the responsibility for the plebiscite not going ahead is Bill Shorten. And sadly what we've discovered about Bill Shorten - and we've known in the Coalition for some time, but the public are now seeing - is he's not in the least bit interested in policy outcomes. He couldn't care less about same-sex marriage, and he doesn't care less about the many couples around Australia who'd like to have the same legal status as my wife and I enjoy. He only wants to play politics with this issue, which is a great shame.

Obviously, we'll let the dust settle on what's happened. It would be foolish to make decisions in the heat of the moment about what the next steps might be, and we have a very full agenda for the rest of the year, which we are getting through. I'm sure Bill Shorten would like us to be distracted on this issue. We had a plebiscite policy. That has now been defeated, and we will get on with our agenda, which is very full.

JOURNALIST: Mr Pyne, you mentioned next steps. Now that this prospect of the plebiscite is being defeated, is that it for this current term of Parliament? Or are there next steps, as you seem to indicate?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, as I've said, we have a very full agenda for the rest of this year, which we intend to get on with prosecuting. We're not going to make any decisions in the heat of the moment, straight after the plebiscite has been defeated. The sensible thing to do is to let the dust settle on this issue, and get on with the rest of our agenda.

JOURNALIST: Obviously this is a very personal issue, and you say that you're a same-sex marriage advocate. Would you prefer just straight off the bat to have a free vote? Would you think that is the best way to do this?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, as I said, I'm not going to get distracted on the issue. I'm getting on with the job of being the Defence Industry Minister. We are, as you can see today, delivering in a way that I think most people in the defence establishment and media commentators thought was quite unlikely. We now have a string of achievements in the last four months where we're proving that we are getting on with the job of creating defence industry as a major pillar of our economy. We have another good news announcement today which is very important, and I'm- I don't want it to become distracted with marriage equality. I'll always support marriage equality, and- but unfortunately Bill Shorten has snuffed out the prospects of that in the short term.

JOURNALIST: Is there any room to move on Arrium? For example, if this South Korean prospect says if you chuck in another 10 million or 50 million, is there room to move the Federal Government to help out more?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Greg Hunt is doing a marvellous job building on my work, of course, as the Minister for Industry briefly in the golden age of that portfolio, in the nine months that I held it. He is building on that work through things like the 72,000 tonnes of steel for Arrium, for the Adelaide - Tarcoola rail line, the $50 million we pledged during the election to help them upgrade their equipment at Whyalla which will mean that the cost of them doing business will be reduced. I, when I was the Minister for Industry, imposed certain duties on Chinese steel and other countries' steel from Asia that we felt were being dumped here. So we have set up quite a good foundation for insuring that Arrium has a very bright future, and that means Whyalla will have a very bright future.

Greg has just returned from South Korea, where he had very prospective discussions with companies there about their interest in Arrium, and he tells me that he thinks that's very- that's going very positively, and a positive outcome would be exactly what every South Australian wants, and in fact if the plans that the company has put to Greg Hunt come to fruition, it will lead to an expansion of the production at Whyalla, more jobs at Whyalla, and just proves that manufacturing in Australia has a very bright future.

The first two quarters of this year were the two best quarters for manufacturing since 2004, since April 2004. So the idea that some politicians put around that it's all doom and gloom in manufacturing, and want to once again play politics with peoples' livelihoods, simply isn't true. And if the proposals for Arrium come to pass, which of course in the end are a decision for the administrators, KordaMentha, then in fact we'll be proving those sceptics wrong, because advanced technology manufacturing is certainly something we can compete in. Today's announcement about the Joint Strike Fighter.