The federal government has taken credit for saving the munitions manufacturing industry on the Border with investments like this week’s new contract with Thales Australia at Mulwala and Benalla.
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Speaking in Parliament question time on Wednesday, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne described the company as a “success story”.
“We wanted to give certainty to the families of highly-skilled workers in Benalla and Mulwala,” he said.
“It’s a success story in the defence industry because many years ago the munitions factories were looking down the barrel quite frankly, pardon the pun, because of the ancient nature of some of their facilities.
“We’ve invested in the manufacturing facilities in your electorate and the member for Indi and Farrer’s electorate and now the munitions factories there are the most modern in the world.”
The minister said it was important to be able to produce propellants and explosives in Australia, then export them to friends and allies around the world.
He was responding to a question from Indi MP Cathy McGowan, but he would not be drawn on her query about an upcoming tender for the LAND 400 Phase 2 project – a $5 million bid involving Wodonga’s Parker Hannifin to build armed reconnaissance tanks.
The federal government is expected to make a decision by the end of February.
“It’s a nice try from the member for Indi to try to get me to talk about a tender that’s close to completion … I will avoid breaking the tender at this late stage,” Mr Pyne said.
