Australia needs ambition to build world-class submarines, SA leader says

Australia should have the ambition to keep a submarine industry that can make the "most sophisticated equipment on the face of the planet", South Australia's Premier Jay Weatherill has said.

In an impassioned plea to build submarines at home amid fears the Abbott government continues to lean towards sending the work offshore, Mr Weatherill said high-end manufacturing was just the kind of industry that should be encouraged.

"There is almost nobody that thinks it's a good idea to spend $50 billion in somebody else's country, especially when you're crying out to create the new economy of the future," he told the National Press Club in Canberra.

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