Australian Greens
The Federal Labor Government today delivered a made-up $30 billion AUKUS ‘announceable’ for South Australia, that is not backed up by any budget commitment and is a stark political play weeks out from the SA State election.
Only a fraction of these funds are in the budget forecasts, nominally to build facilities at Osborne for the construction of AUKUS submarines over a decade in the future for boats that have not yet been designed.
The AUKUS Agreement is intended to enable Australia to purchase second-hand US nuclear submarines, which experts say is unlikely to occur. Meanwhile, the UK is leading the design and production of the new type of AUKUS nuclear submarine, core parts of which the UK audit office says is ‘unachievable’.
Senator David Shoebridge, Greens Spokesperson for Defence, said: “This $30 billion is a made-up number, we saw the same thing from Labor late last year for the Henderson precinct in WA just weeks before Albanese went to Washington.
“Labor is shameless in announcing these multi-billion dollar, uncosted AUKUS numbers without even a shred of reality, let alone budget commitments, to back them in.
“The real budgeted amount for South Australia is only a fraction of what the Albanese Government has committed to the UK and the US submarine industries. That should show you everything about the priorities of Federal and State Labor.
“We have seen this all before in South Australia, the Government spending hundreds of millions building facilities for French submarines only to spend millions more to tear it all down when the project crashed. We are watching history repeat itself with AUKUS.
“The only secure jobs this will create are for retired Labor and Liberal politicians going to work in the US and UK defence industries after they leave politics.”
As stated by Robert Simms MLC, said: “While South Australians are desperate for cost-of-living relief, Labor are wasting billions of dollars on nuclear submarines when we could instead fund healthcare, education and housing.”
As stated by Lead Upper House Candidate Melanie Selwood, said: “The major parties are bending over backwards to deliver the doomed AUKUS plan. AUKUS ties our state’s economic future to the US, defence industries, and the storage of nuclear waste. Instead we could be building a future for our state by funding local infrastructure manufacturing, building affordable housing, and investing in educational programs that serve the interests of South Australians, not the US and the UK.”
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