Scott Morrison is moving to head off an electoral backlash in South Australia after the prime minister appeared to water down the government’s commitment to building Aukus nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide.
As he prepares to formally trigger the federal election campaign within days, Morrison was forced into damage control on Thursday, reassuring South Australian voters about his support for domestic shipbuilding jobs.
The new South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, fired a warning shot, saying the Liberals had a track record of “delays and broken promises” and he would “not accept anything less” than the submarines being built in Adelaide.
“My position is clear: the submarines must be built in Adelaide and South Australia must get the jobs we have been promised for years and years,” the Labor premier told Guardian Australia.
South Australian federal Liberal MPs also said they expected the government to honour its commitment.
The pre-election Aukus controversy stems from Morrison’s response on Wednesday when asked to guarantee that each of the new submarines – other than the nuclear reactor – would be built in Australia.
Morrison gave a qualified answer. “Well, we’re working through all of those issues and that is certainly our intention to maximise all of that,” he told reporters in western Sydney.
The prime minister went on to emphasise the need for speedy delivery. “But it’s also the paramount goal is to ensure we get that capability as soon as we can, and it’s in the best form that it can be working with our partners.”
That was interpreted as a hint that a desire for shorter timeframes might trump local jobs when a decision is finalised early next year, and the issue was picked up by South Australian media outlets.
In a sign of the Coalition’s political sensitivity over the issue, Morrison spoke to an Adelaide radio station on Thursday to insist his comments had been “twisted” in a “false and misleading” way.
“I just want to put people’s minds at rest,” Morrison told radio FiveAA.
“I mean, there’s no change to our policy here. We will build submarines in South Australia, and we will build as much of them in SA as we possibly can.”
In the same interview, Morrison conceded there were “a lot of technical issues that we’ll have to work through” but said the desire to secure the capability as quickly as possible “doesn’t change our commitment to what we’re doing in South Australia, at all”.
Pressed on whether he could quantify how much of the submarine would be built domestically, Morrison said: “Well, no one can. I mean, because we haven’t down-selected to the actual submarine.”
When the Aukus partnership with the US and the UK was announced in September, the three countries launched an 18-month study into how Australia could achieve delivery of at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines.
The Morrison government said at the time its intention was to build them in South Australia, although it never gave an iron-clad promise. It has yet to announce whether it prefers the US or the UK design, but has predicted the first submarines could be ready by the late 2030s.
The South Australian independent senator Rex Patrick and rival upper house contender Nick Xenophon both vowed to campaign to secure local jobs.
“I do not believe that the prime minister is being honest with the Australian public,” Patrick said. He cited the government’s dumping of its previous pledge to build the Pacific Step Up vessel domestically on the basis it needed to acquire it more quickly.
Xenophon, who is attempting a political comeback, said Morrison was trying to use a “gaudy velvet wallpaper to plaster over a wall full of cracks and holes because there is no plan at the moment”. He said advanced manufacturing jobs were at stake.
The Liberals were already concerned about the marginal lower house seat of Boothby, but the party is now also worried the seat of Sturt – formerly held by Christopher Pyne – could be vulnerable in the event of a backlash.
The Liberal MP for Sturt, James Stevens, who has a 6.9% margin, said the government had “always been crystal clear that our future submarines will be built in Adelaide” and he expected the commitment to be kept.
Rowan Ramsey, the Liberal MP for the safe seat of Gray, said South Australian members were “not always in lockstep with everything but we are lockstep on this one”.
“The commitment is to build the subs in SA and that is what we expect to happen,” Ramsey said.
The government also faces renewed scrutiny over the cost of the abandoned French diesel-electric submarine project.
Defence officials told Senate estimates they expected the yet-to-be-completed settlement with French contractor Naval Group could be met from within the existing budget. About half of the $5.5bn in previously approved funding has already been spent.
Morrison has defended the costs, saying Australia needed the less easily detectible nuclear-powered submarines: “The Plan B I had was better than Plan A.”
