PM raises Australia’s concerns twice with François Hollande at G20, but defence industry minister plays down significance of Scorpene leaks

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Malcolm Turnbull has taken a notably tougher line than his defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, about embarrassing data leaks relating to the Scorpene submarine, flagging Australia’s concerns with the French president, François Hollande, in two separate encounters at the G20.

The prime minister telegraphed publicly the concerns he was in the process of expressing to Hollande on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hangzhou on Monday, telling Australian-travelling reporters the leaks were “very very regrettable”.

But earlier in the morning, back in Australia, Pyne was playing down the significance of the leaked material.

Pyne told the ABC “they were not top-secret documents, which would obviously be very serious, but the Scorpene class of submarine built by DCNS is their export model of submarines, it’s the same submarine bought by several different countries around the world, it bears no relation at all to the Barracuda submarine which will be built for Australia which is a unique submarine”.

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The defence industry minister said the material was “old” and he’d taken all the steps necessary “to satisfy myself as to the protections that we have in place – and they are second to none”.

A huge trove of documents were leaked late last month from French shipbuilder DCNS detailing the ­secret combat capability of the six Scorpene-class submarines it has designed for the Indian navy.

In April DCNS won the $50bn contract to build and maintain Barracuda-class submarines to Australian specifications in South Australia – seeing off rival bidders from Germany and Japan.

Turnbull, speaking to reporters in Hangzhou, said he had raised his concerns abut the leak with Hollande during one informal meeting at the G20 – and the prime minister said he would be discussing the issue with the president in more detail during a formal bilateral at the summit later on Monday.

“Maintaining absolute maximum security, total security, on information of this kind is critical,” Turnbull said.

“The leaks of the material relating to the Scorpene submarine are very, very regrettable. There’s a thorough investigation going on on the French side to see how that happened.

“Of course it’s a different submarine to the one that we are going to build in collaboration with the French but it is absolutely critical to maintain the highest level of security.”

Turnbull also said he had raised Australia’s decision to go with the French submarine bid rather than the German offering from Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems during a bilateral meeting at the G20 with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Turnbull lavished praise on Merkel, characterising her as “one of the great leaders of our times”.

“It was a discussion between friends and as you’d expect, very open,” Turnbull said. “We’re both very frank people. So I thanked her for the German bid, which was of a very high quality.

“And I explained to her, as we have done previously to her officials, that the advice we had was absolutely unequivocal that the French bid was the one that best met our very unique requirements, and of course, that did not reflect at all, in any way, on the quality of the other two bids.”

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In other developments at the G20 on Monday:

Turnbull said Australian government was on track to strike one of the first post-Brexit trade deals with Britain after a meeting with British prime minister, Theresa May;



Before a conversation with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan late on Monday, Turnbull said finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis remained a pressing concern, and he said Australia was “committed to the destruction of Isil or Daesh in the field”;



And before the release of the G20 communique, which will address the global steel glut, the Australian prime minister said an adjustment in the global steelmaking industry would require careful management, especially in the G20 host country China, which is often blamed for the current level of overproduction. Turnbull noted “these adjustments have political consequences here, just as they do in other countries”.



Turnbull was also asked about Australia’s foreign policy relationship with China given the various recent flashpoints over investment in Australian farmland and critical infrastructure, and geopolitical tensions over China’s aggressive posture in the South China Sea.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping raised investment with Turnbull during their one-on-one at the Hangzhou summit.

The prime minister told reporters his meeting with Xi during the G20 was “very cordial”. He said Australia welcomed and embraced China’s rise, and the friction between Canberra and Beijing was “modest relative to the scale of the relationship”.