Dudded: A reality check on SA’s naval shipbuilding future
The government is drunk on AUKUS Kool-Aid and Peter Dutton seems to want even more of the same, writes Rex Patrick.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton is talking big on Defence, promising an extra $21 billion on Defence spending between now and 2030.
He, along with Prime Minister Albanese, is clinging to the AUKUS submarine scheme as the touchstone of Australia’s future security in a troubled world.
But here’s a reality check with particular relevance for our state, South Australia. When it comes to our role in naval shipbuilding, it’s fair to say we’ve been well and truly dudded.
On 17 September 2021, the day before Scott Morrison announced the AUKUS program, SA’s defence industry had contracts in place to build twelve Attack-class submarines and nine future frigates. Osborne was also designated the shipyard where all major combatant vessels would be built.
Three and a half years later it’s a very different story. As things now stand, thanks to decisions of both the Morrison and Albanese Governments, South Australia has no contracts to build submarines, the number of future frigates has shrunk from nine to six; and the eleven new General Purpose Frigates won’t be built in SA, rather overseas and in WA.
The best we can hope for moving forward is that SA will start to build three, possibly five, British-designed nuclear submarines (SS-AUKUS) sometime in the mid-2030s, but the prospect of that project proceeding at Osborne gets more remote each day.
The first loss of submarine construction work from SA occurred when it was announced Australia would acquire between three and five Virginia Class nuclear attack submarines from the US Navy and US shipyards, starting around 2035. It turns out that to transfer those submarines, whilst first meeting the US Navy’s needs, the US submarine industrial base needs to be building 2.3 submarines per year. They’re currently building 1.1 boats per year, down from 1.3 last year. We will not get US submarines.
The second phase of AUKUS involves building SSN-AUKUS in SA, vessels still in the design phase. That’s the much touted but long-distance hope for SA; but the UK’s submarine industry is one big cluster fiasco. They have a disastrous track record of delays and cost blowouts. Even if they can overcome a recent independent assessment that their new naval reactor program is simply “unachievable”, the UK is unlikely to deliver the design, industrial support or key components in a time frame that meets Australia’s strategic needs.
In February this year the head of the submarine program, Admiral Johnathan Mead, admitted to the Senate that AUKUS is “very high risk”. That should have set alarm bells ringing. Yet there’s simply denial from our political leaders, Prime Minister Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and indeed Opposition Leader Dutton; even in the face of the geopolitical uncertainty triggered by US President Trump’s “America First” disruptions.
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It’s not the case that they have no Plan B. In a recent exchange I had with former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull he hit the nail on the head when he said “They have a Plan B, unfortunately Plan B is that we will not have submarines”.
There is real danger that SA will not build any submarines for our navy; and if that happens South Australian industry, and our state as a whole, will pay a very heavy price.
I know Morrison promised nuclear submarines will be built at Osborne. I know Albanese promises nuclear submarines will be built at Osborne. I hear Dutton saying AUKUS will steam ahead. And I hear Premier Peter Malinauskas insist South Australia’s defence future is bright. But none of these politicians will be around to be held to account when it all hits the fan.
Australia needs to change course. We need to ditch the $368B AUKUS pipedream of the Defence bureaucrats, the bureaucracy that has already brought us more than $20B in failed defence projects in just the past half decade.
We need to move to a low-risk acquisition of guaranteed capability; building twenty off-the-shelf air-independent submarines. Construction would start in SA sooner. This larger submarine force would come at a fraction of the vast expense of AUKUS; and would allow us to acquire a lot of additional defence capability as well. Enhanced air power including long range strike capabilities as well as missile defences are obvious priorities.
South Australian defence industry could move forward with confidence, not the present uncertainty. We could also strengthen our broad national resilience. A squadron of nuclear submarines makes little sense when we only have twenty-two days of diesel fuel in country at any one time, and no merchant marine worth of mention.
It’s not too late to implement a real Plan B with South Australia focusing on building realistic naval capabilities, not fantasy projects.
But there seems to be no appetite for change inside the Government. They’re all drunk on AUKUS Kool-Aid. And Peter Dutton seems to want even more of the same.
We won’t see a change of course unless forced by political pressure or events. Hopefully, that might come before we’re shipwrecked.
Rex Patrick is a former SA Senator, a submariner and the SA candidate for the Jacqui Lambie Network.
