By NICOLE VALICEK
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has assured shipbuilders that the impending “valley of death” will be crossed if the Labor government is re-elected.
During a visit to BAE System in Williamstown last Thursday Mr Rudd told an assembled line of workers that the Federal Government would bring forward construction of two naval supply vessels to 2015-16.
He said the move will boost local shipbuilding, support hundreds of high-skill jobs and fill the gap in construction schedule known as the “valley of death”.
Unless new contracts are signed to build major vessels in Australia, there will be no work in defence shipbuilding from 2015, as current work dries up.
Mr Rudd stated that he wanted the “vast bulk” of Australia’s naval ships to be built in this country.
“The Valley of Death will be crossed and crossed well,” he said.
“We have here assembled in this mighty facility today a vast aggregation of Australian talent.”
“We understand that if we lose the skills of this industry it’ll be incredibly difficult to get them back, risking the industry’s long-term survival.”
Mr Rudd was taken on a quick tour of the yard looking at various bits of giant ships with a focus on not only jobs but “certainty and security” for the BAR workers careers.
“’Your jobs are important jobs, they’re important to me,” he said.
“You don’t learn to build a naval ship overnight. You don’t learn the set of core engineering skills on a weekend course … I’m proud of what you bring to bear in this important industry for Australia.”
It was the second prime ministerial visit to the BAE Systems during the election campaign.
Mr Rudd said acquisition of the $1.5 billion vessels was already funded under the defence capability plan.
Labor candidate for Gellibrand Tim Watts said the local shipbuilding industry is critical to local jobs, the regional economy and national security.
“Bringing forward the acquisition of these projects could allow the local industry to fill any gap between the next major naval construction projects and allow us to maintain a highly skilled workforce in Melbourne,” he said.
