Philip Smart | Adelaide
Tuesday’s release of the Federal Government’s long awaited Naval Shipbuilding Plan has put dates in calendars for the $89 billion acquisition of 54 new vessels over the next four decades.
Specifically, the government has committed to build up to 21 Pacific patrol boats, 12 offshore patrol vessels, nine future frigates and 12 future submarines.
The plan centres around three core continuous build programs:
- A rolling acquisition of submarines, beginning with the future submarine (Sea 1000) project from 2022–23, and based at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia;
- A continuous build program for major surface combatants, starting with the future frigate (Sea 5000) project from 2020, and based at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia; and
- A continuous build program for minor naval vessels, beginning with the pacific patrol boat (Sea 3036) project in 2017 at the Austal facility at the Henderson Maritime Precinct in Western Australia, and the offshore patrol vessel (Sea 1180) project from 2018, initially from the Osborne Naval Shipyard and transferring to the Henderson Maritime Precinct in Western Australia when the future frigate project begins construction in Adelaide in 2020.
While the plan’s main points have been publicly debated, one or two associated nuggets have surfaced too.
Last week the South Australian Government announced that it had secured the sale of Techport Australia to the Australian Government for $230 million.
The Naval Shipbuilding Plan outlines a $535 million investment in infrastructure upgrades at Osborne’s shipbuilding facility, starting in the second half of this year.
Completion of the shipbuilding infrastructure development is expected to be completed by the second half of 2019, but the report warns it is time-critical that this occurs to enable the Future Frigate program to begin on time by 2020.
The Shipbuilding Plan has also devoted considerable space to questions of how the industry’s skilled workforce will be built from the 800 or so workers expected to still be employed in 2018, to the 5200 needed to complete the programs. Past defence employees, already ingrained with the processes and attitudes of defence work, will be targeted to return to shipbuilding, while the plan may also offer one of the few positives of a declining mining industry through availability of skilled workers.
Reaction to the shipbuilding plan has been as expected: industry has expressed relief that there is now a plan, with those directly involved singing the project’s praises or pointing out its shortcomings, depending on how positively the plan may affect them.
ASC Interim chief executive officer, Stuart Whiley, said the Plan confirmed ASC’s role in improving Australia’s operational submarine capability, with funding of $2.6 billion in capability enhancements and obsolescence management, along with $6.7 billion for Collins Class sustainment into the 2030s.
Lockheed Martin, Navantia and Raytheon have all lauded the plan as creating a means of preserving Australia’s sovereign capability and creating the predictability required for industry to invest in technologies and people over the long term.
Meanwhile Australian Made Defence spokesperson and Defence Teaming Centre CEO Margot Forster welcomed the plan’s launch, but believes industry needs to focus on the critical subject of workforce development in order to ensure it succeeds.
“Now we have certainty around future naval shipbuilding programs, we must turn our attention to the workforce required to deliver,” Ms Forster said. “Developing a sufficiently skilled workforce in such a short timeframe presents the greatest risk to our success.”
And not everyone is happy. South Australian Minister for Defence Industries Martin Hamilton-Smith believes the Federal Government needs to show a greater commitment to Australian industry on the coming major projects.
“South Australia’s small and medium enterprises who are working on the Air Warfare Destroyer program are already struggling to survive as work comes to an end,” he said.
“The Australian Government must stand up for our industry and mandate 90 per cent Australian industry participation on the 2018 Offshore Patrol Vessel program to stabilise the naval shipbuilding supply chain and increase industrial capability.”
And Federal member for Fremantle, Josh Wilson believes the shipbuilding plan essentially ignores Western Australia’s capability and may even create the prospect of the state essentially losing Offshore Patrol Vessel construction if things don’t go according to plan in Adelaide.
“While South Australia’s shipyards will receive infrastructure investment of over a billion dollars, all WA received today was a reheated and vague policy announcement of $100m that the Prime Minister made during the state election,” he said.
“Not only will the bulk of the construction take place in South Australia, but the Maritime Technical College, the Centre for Defence Industry Capability, Next Generation Technologies Fund and the Defence Innovation Hub have all been based in South Australia. WA gets none of them.”
“I am very concerned that if the Future Frigates program is delayed, the OPV build will not be transferred across to WA. Both Defence Ministers keep saying the OPV build will only be transferred when the Future Frigates begin, not after the first two OPVs are completed.”