Smithson: Subs won’t roll out for 16 years so why the urgency with PM’s visit?
The PM was in town talking billions of dollars despite knowing the fifth AUKUS submarine won’t roll off the production line until 2057. Both Albo and Mali will be comfortably in aged care by then – if they can find a bed, Mike Smithson says.
Prime Minister’ Anthony Albanese’s visit to Osborne over the weekend was curious in its timing but, in the current political climate, totally predictable.
The first AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine to be built in South Australia is still 16 years away from completion, but a smartly attired Anthony Albanese saw it as crucial to visit the site on a sunny Sunday morning with his entourage.
Premier Peter Malinauskas was also dressed in a suit and tie in the steamy surrounds of a giant BAE Systems shed at Osborne in 30-plus degree heat, as his here-and-now showpiece LIV golf tournament teed off just down the road.
The shipyard was such a popular location that US Senator Tim Kaine dropped in 24 hours later ahead of another Labor announcement of a major skills package.
So, what were these high importance media events really designed for?
The state government goes into caretaker mode from this Saturday until the election.
That means the Premier can’t enter into new major projects, contracts or undertakings.
Anthony Albanese’s visit could’ve waited until well after the election, but in such campaigns the optics are everything.
Gifting $30 billion to SA over a long period is certainly an attention grabber and ideally timed before the Premier’s powers technically become dormant.
The government says the PM’s visit was weeks in the planning, but I consider the exact timing was a significant factor.
It’s locked in a long-term vision for the state as voters start to get serious about their intentions.
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The Liberals were nowhere to be seen at Osborne.
Perhaps their invitations were mislaid.
There’s been little credit given to past decision makers, such as Scott Morrison, who helped broker the AUKUS deal or former Liberal state premier Steven Marshall who lived and breathed the project during his final year in office and continues to do so from New York.
The current Premier wasn’t going to look a federal gift horse in the mouth.
“This is just the beginning,” he said.
“That figure ($30b) only represents the task of building the enabling infrastructure.
“There will be many billions more invested in the incredibly complex task of building nuclear-powered submarines.”
The PM freely gave up his Sunday morning for another reason.
With the federal opposition still picking up the pieces of its leadership spill, Mr Albanese had clear air to spruik an eyewatering project without having to hand over the bulk of the cash in the short term.
It sounds impressive but without any immediate timelines.
We’re told 10,000 jobs will be created across the entire project.
Construction is expected to use 126,000 tonnes of steel, equal to the weight of steel in 17 Eiffel Towers.
Such statistics are designed to excite the imagination of voters for years to come as they envisage their kids and grandkids being assured well-paid careers.
This big spend on complex infrastructure facilities at Osborne could be around for another century.
Don’t forget the fifth AUKUS submarine won’t roll off the production line until 2057, with new ones delivered every three years after that.
If they live to a ripe old age, both Albo and Mali will be comfortably in aged care by then, that’s if they can find a bed.
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So again, why the urgency to pave the way for this futuristic project less than a week from caretaker mode and within sight of the election that Mali apparently can’t lose?
The answer seems blindingly obvious, the political optics of course.
On the other side of the coin, where does it leave Liberal leader Ashton Hurn.
As billions were promised under the Malinauskas watch, she was in the Barossa Valley offering farmers, wine grape growers and winemakers $300 million worth of no and low interest loans, if elected.
It’s hard to compare these two media events in terms of scale and financial magnitude.
Hurn has just come off another turbulent week where her revised water rebate policy was clumsily blurted out by the Libs but then publicly revealed by the government.
It was initially mentioned in passing on stage at a water industry breakfast.
Whether Shadow Water Resources Minister Nicola Centofanti thought her party’s unheralded U-turn on the Libs offering water rebates was going to come back and bite her is hard to know.
She dodged cameras on the following day, when the story broke, and later posted on social media that it was her birthday, with an inference that she should be left alone.
And as earlier forecast, I doubt Hurn will have much appetite for a campaign visit from new federal leader Angus Taylor.
It’s no secret that she was cornered into a photo opportunity a few weeks ago by then under-siege leader Sussan Ley.
I suspect Ley wanted to hitch her wagon to Hurn, rather than vice-versa.
Having the new conservative male leader from Canberra help push Hurn’s climb to the top of her political Mount Everest over coming weeks is hardly the look she wants.
Reality has hit even harder with the resignation of high profile federal Liberal Charlotte Mortlock over concerns regarding female representation and Taylor’s leadership.
Hurn is a fresh new moderate female leader, so any appearance from Taylor would be a distraction leading to more questions than it provides answers.
That flurry of questions comparing Hurn to Ley as female Liberal leaders doesn’t even bear thinking about and I’m certain she and her minders will be concealing any Angus Taylor welcome mat well inside parliament’s basement.
Hurn is a persuasive and tactical operator who could leave a real legacy should she ever become the state’s first female premier.
As I hypothetically stated on ABC radio’s spin cycle last week, if Malinauskas was hit by a bus tomorrow, which I certainly hope won’t happen, and Hurn was to defect to Labor, she could step into the leader’s role and succeed.
But we all know that’s as likely as her winning government on March 21.
Mike Smithson is weekend newsreader and political analyst for 7News.
