Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer joins Graeme Goodings.
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As I mentioned earlier in the program, former Foreign Minister, Liberal leader and diplomat Alexander Dana has written a compelling article in this Morning's Advertiser. He says we should forget the subs and find better ways to invest in South Australia. He joins me in Alexander Danna, welcome, thanks for coming on the show today.
It's a pleasure Graham.
You believe that the billions of dollars being spent on preparation for the subs that Osborne should be put in other areas.
Yes, well, I think it's wasted because in the end, I don't think submarines will ever be built in Adelaide because of the cost and the amount of time and the amount of skilled labor book fire to do that. And I think ultimately common sense will prevail and will buy the submarine from either the US or the UK, where they have felt nuclear submarines for generation. And I think we would be much better investing the money in South Australia in promoting our education institutions, the arts, obviously dealing with some of the health and education problems that we have, such a branding which means more hospital beds. There are so many things a week that invest the money in rather than I mean, frankly, I think in then we're going to waste it on building a shipyard for submarines that will never be built.
It's seen as a panacea for employment in the economy. A lot of people would say if we don't go down that path, there are tens of thousands who won't get jobs.
Well, I won't create tens of thousands of jobs. I mean not even the government, as the most prosy optimistic, think that there'll be tens of thousands of jobs. It will be a few thousand jobs. But on the other hand, you have to think when you're investing money in the opportunity cost of what you're doing. You're investing the money in building submarines or building a facility for constructing submarines, and therefore you're not using that money for something else. And my argument is that you will create a lot more sustainable and long term jobs and a lot more dynamism in South Australia if you invested in a series of other areas and try to build on some of South Australia's traditional strength. If you channel all your money into one area like building submarines. Well, of course, the people who get the money will do very well after that. But think about the people who don't get it. It's about all the projects that we just don't go ahead with because we're putting their money into building submarines. When we could get the submarines, and we do need the submarines, we could get them much more cheaply getting them built off shore. I mean, let me give you an example. We don't build F thirty five fighter aircraft Australia because it will just be too expensive. It would just be a waste of our resources when we can buy them much more cheaply from the US. Not with their chief, but we buy them more cheaply from the US. Well, it's the same with a nuclear submarine.
You said in your article. Modern South Asralia was founded on ambition, but today it doesn't seem to have quite the same burning desire to build a great society.
No.
I'm sorry to say that because I am a native South Australian and my parents, grandparents and great grandparents were all born in South Australia. So I remain very committed to state. But I think it has lost a lot of a lot of the ambition. I was reminded the other day of Robert Barr Smith, who was an early nineteenth century pioneer grazier in South Australia. He made a huge amount of money and he puts some of us as a philanthropis into the University of Adelaide because, as he said, he wanted the University of Adelaide to be one of the best in the world. Well, now that a University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide are going to merge, that's an opportunity for us to think about, well, how can we make this merge university the best in Australia and one of the great universities of the world. Will will require investment, but we won't have the investment because we're investing at all in building facilities for the construction of nuclear submarine and we could buy that offshore.
That's what I mean.
You look back in your article to your relationship with Mike ran when he was Premier and you were Foreign Minister. You work together to try to create Adelaide as a university center, and you had some success, but that now has a long distant memory.
Yeah, well, we did have early success. I mean the two of us, he being the premier of the state and me being one of the senior members of the federal cabinet were we are obviously had power in those days, which neither of us have anymore, and we work together to get Carnegie Mellon established in Adelaide, and then he got ucild University College London, which is one of the twenty top universities in the world, to invest there as well. So we got off to a great start actually with this vision. But to be honest, subsequent governments haven't shown much interest in the project at all. And so I mean liberal and labor. It's not a question of one versus the other. Neither of them have shown much interest in this vision. They get bogged down in issues which I mean are not claiming, so people shouldn't ring in and say I'm saying these things are unimportant. They get bogged down in issues like ramping, which is important, but you have to have you have to have a basic vision for the state and an ambition for the state. Not just to make sure we have enough hospital beds. All states have to do, all countries have to do that, but we have to have some bigger idea in our heads than that. And I thought creating Adelaide as the sort of Boston of Australia as a leading educational particularly tertiary education center, but not just Australia but Southeast Asia. I thought that was a great idea. But to be honest with you, Mike Gran did that nobody else might seems to have done since.
Another area that you allude to us the fact that Adelaide was a trendsetter when it came to the arts. I mean the Adelaide Festival is still the country's leading festival, but we seem to have lost direction and focus regarding the arts.
Yeah, they're not given the priority that they were when I mean Steel Hall started, who had just died recently, had started the Adelaide Festival Center project and that was built on by his successor, Don Dunstan. So there was great enthusiasm I think actually the festival started under Sir Thomas Playford, but there was great enthusiasm to make Adelaide this sort of cultural capital of Australia, which was a fantastic idea actually, So we built the festival center and in half the time and for much less cost than Sydney opera hows. We got off to a great start, but since then we have rarely fallen behind. I mean I think other states have I mean, we have a symphony orchestra, but every state that has a symphony orchestra has a concert hall for at symphony orchestra and we don't have one because that's never been a priority to South Australia. I mean, you know, I think if you go to the South Bank of Brisbane you will see this huge ambition that governments there have had to turn the South Bank into a great, a great cultural center. And we started that way, but then we've sort of lost direction and lost interest. And you know, politicians are more interested in other issues. They don't seem to be so interested in the arts anymore.
A lot of money has been spent in the state by the premier. It's generated a lot of income. To be fair with the AFL gather around and you know, live golf and the two down Under bring in lots of money. But it's all sport focused. Do you think we should be looking at broader areas well.
I wouldn't take the money away from sport. I actually am a supporter of what the premier has done. I mean I went to one of the gather around games with the n Adelaide essence of game, but with the usual result, and I think that's great, and I'm glad he brought back via car race as well, because I thought that was always a good thing for Adelaide to have. No, I'm in Australia as a country that loves its sports and South Australians included, and it does make a lot of difference to the state if we do invest in sports. But we don't want to lose our status as a great art center. And I mean the Festival and actually the Fringe are still by far the biggest and the best in Australia, but we want to make sure we don't lose that status. And I think, you know, there's too little interest and enthusiasm for the arts for us to maintain our premier position that we once had.
Tight economic times, people would say, look, you know, we've got to spend on the realities of life, ramping the health and medical education system. We can't widen our focus at this time. Is that what you're saying is this for the future, It's not for the day.
Well, my argument is that we are spending a lot on those things, and I'm not criticizing that, but we're also spending a huge amount on building submarine in Nablade, and I don't see I think having the submarine is an essentral component about defense, the parents against the research in China and all of that. I'm familiar with all those issues obviously, so I do think that's a priority. But building the submarines in Adelaide is going to impose a huge premium on the cost of building it, of buying submarines when we could get them much more cheaply flem offshore, and that would free up billions of billions of dollars which we could invest in a whole range of other things, including some of the things that I've been talking about and the things.
That you're talking about as well.
We could do both, but instead we're investing the money in trying to build nuclear powered submarines. I mean, we have no experience of building US were powered submarines. So we have to train up a workforce, we have to find the workforce. We we have to invest in building the infrastructure. It's huge ex that infrastructure already exists in America and in the UK. The workforces are already there.
In Australia in the UK, although they're a bit short of labor in both cases, but their workforces do exist. Not far better, far better to get them to build the submarines. Just that, just five the submarines off.
The shelf and spend some of the change. We could save some of the change. But since spend some of the change when you're talking to billions of dollars on some of the sorts of things that would give us Australia more ambitions, is it.
Too late for us to change course?
I mean, I'm sure we won't because it would be politically top. I mean, what I'm saying.
Is politically toxic.
I imagine nobody would get elected. It would be the argument that the political pundits would put. But of course it's not too late. I mean, the sooner we change direction, the better. Frankly, I mean, because then we'll save money. But at the moment we're investing in land and materials and training of people and starting to build up towards this new facility as Osborne to build the submarines. And then you know, the day, the day probably won't arrive, that the day could arrive when we start actually building the submarines, I personally don't think that will ever happen because the cost of building the submarines, the total cost of the project is said by the federal government to be around three hundred and sixty billion dollars. Well, I mean that's deployed over many years, but that is a huge amount of just a huge, an i watering amount of money and the time that it would take to build these submarines. I mean, I've often said this as I doubt very much, even with the best hope in the world that I may have, that I would live to see the last of the submarine built in that leg because if they were built in that lad, I think it would be beyond my lifetime that they would be built, and most of us.
Alexander Dna thank you so much for your time today. If you haven't read the article I recommended to you, it's in the Advertiser today. A former foreign minister, Liberal leader and diplomat Alexander Dunna a compelling article, Should we forget the subs and find a better way to invest in South Australia