Senator EDWARDS (South Australia) (15:15): What a disingenuous rant that was! Let me talk to you about crab-walking. Where was Senator Conroy—when he was in cabinet—when he was crab-walking from Defence Minister Fitzgibbon? Where was he when Minister Faulkner was crab-walking from the issue of the submarine build? Senator Conroy: Not on the NSC. Senator EDWARDS: Where were you, Senator Conroy, when Minister Smith did the same? There were three defence ministers in six years in the Defence portfolio. How trite of you to come in here and accuse us of inaction in building submarines, when you sucked $16.3 billion out of the Defence budget and left it in a complete vacuum. Senator Gallacher was down there that day, along with the other South Australian Senators when the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, did his big xenophobic rant on the back of a truck— Senator Gallacher: Mr Deputy President, I would like to point out that I was not there; I was in Tasmania. Senator Abetz: That is better than being in South Australia. Senator EDWARDS: I respect the interjection from Senator Gallacher, because I know that if he could have gone to a further place— if he could have got to Norfolk Island that day for a hearing—he probably would have. I know him to be a fair and reasonable person. I have worked with Senator Gallacher, and there is not an island far enough away that he could have found himself on that day. There was not a place he would not hidden that day to get away from the rant of the Leader of the Opposition, who was spruiking the Labor lines down there to the handful of fluoro-vested union spruikers, working up fear and loathing about the government. We are actually doing something. Senator Conroy, I hope you are listening because it was only a few Fridays ago that the Abbott government dealt Australian shipbuilders into the largest defence procurement project in the Commonwealth's history. What a day that was! Now we have some action. Do you know what we have going on in Adelaide over the next couple of days? We have a submarine convention going on. When did we have one of those in the glorious days of submarine building in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd reign that sucked the Defence budget dry? The light at the end of the tunnel is no longer a freight train, as it was when the Labor party was in power, it is now is a build. Senator Conroy: A build in Japan! Senator EDWARDS: Australian shipbuilders, if they get their act together, have the opportunity to build a submarine force that is world-class, as the Collins class was. Now they have an opportunity to do it. If the union movement came together, stopped protesting and sharpened their pencils to get together with management of ASC and other shipbuilders like Forgacs and Osborne. If they realised that, they would have a real shot at this. 'Do not waste a nanosecond' is my message to the union movement, which has been crying this opportunity but which has been ranting and raving— Senator Conroy: You're building them in Japan. Senator EDWARDS: Senator Conroy, I listen to them and I have heard the experts. That is why I have made the representations that I have and I stand behind them. But do not shrilly come in here, lecturing us about crab walking. It is absolute hypocrisy. Senator Conroy: You have been treated like a mushroom. Senator EDWARDS: I wish I had another five minutes. For almost 80 Defence acquisitions completed by Labor after July 2007, nearly 70 per cent were single-sourced procurements. So much for Labor's commitment to open tenders. If you were actually committed—(Time expired)