Twenty years ago the government of the day was facing similar circumstances when it came to procuring a new submarine and new frigates.
At the end of each year, the National Archives of Australia releases cabinet documents under what used to be the 30-year rule, though under changes made by Labor the withholding period has been reduced to 20 years.
During the transition period, two years worth of documents are being released at once and for 2015 it was 1988 and 1989.
This was an interesting time, with Labor ascendant under the leadership of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, a reformist government which these days even the coalition acknowledges achieved significant and worthwhile reforms.
It couldn't last and Keating rolled Hawke. In 1996 the Australian electorate decided Keating was as appealing as Campbell Newman, ushering in the era of John Howard.
The 1980s was a most interesting time for defence. There was vast capital investment, although at the expense of army capability, and equipment acquired then remains in service.
In March 1988, Labor defence minister Kim Beazley was contemplating progress on two important projects, for new submarines and new frigates, both to replace ageing platforms and hopefully, form the basis of an enduring defence industry able to compete on the global stage.
We know now that the Anzac ship project went pretty well, the Collins subs, not so well. For all the issues, Collins was actually a remarkable achievement considering, up to then, we hadn't ever constructed a sub and not all that many warships.
There were of course other dynamics at play that led Labor to embark on this bold and risky venture. It was in the process of selling off its loss-making shipyards and privatising the rest of the defence industry, to form what would become ADI, now Thales. It needed to create jobs.
Just the same, the late 1980s was an era of boundless optimism for ambitious defence projects, when no technical challenge seemed insurmountable.
In this same period, another project was getting under way, the Jindalee over the-horizon-radar network which would also features its share of technical challenges and delays.
JORN is now a reality and a significant element of Australia's national defence, but little appreciated in the broader community because its infrastructure is in the middle of nowhere and its true capabilities remain top secret. JORN is now heading for its phase six upgrade to digitise legacy 1980s analogue systems.
So, what do you reckon would have happened if JORN didn't now exist and a bunch of defence scientists made a pitch to Joe Hockey or Wayne Swan for funding for local development of some unproven but promising technology. Wouldn't happen and if it did, most likely, we'd be looking overseas for an off-the-shelf system from the US.
The headline project for 2015 remains new submarines, in what will be Australia's most complex and expensive defence acquisition project.
Readers will be familiar with the ongoing debate - after promising in opposition to build the new subs in Australia, the Abbott government is now hedging. Labor wants the new subs built in Adelaide, as occurred under Bob Hawke and promised in its 2009 and 2013 Defence White Papers. So do unions and the SA state government.
Perusing the 1988-89 cabinet papers, your correspondent couldn't but contrast the changed attitude on the coalition side there seems to be minimal appetite for embarking on the same bold but perilous path as did Labor under Hawke.
A preponderance of expert opinion favours a local build. For example, an opinion piece by past president of the Submarine Institute of Australia Peter Briggs, released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, says an Australian build would be cheaper overall, provide better control of the project, guarantee quality and achieve improved stealth through use of sensitive Australian and third-party research.
But for all the expert opinion in the world, what's most likely to ensure the new subs are built in Australia is politics. Having lost their motor industry, the voters of South Australia are unlikely to look kindly on a federal government which opted for foreign built subs.
Decisions to end car production were a long time coming and were made overseas. A decision to buy overseas-built subs would be made in Canberra and not that far out from the next federal election.
The stunning about-face of coalition fortunes at the recent Queensland state election is instructive. After just one term, voters hammered the LNP government of Campbell Newman and at least some of that dissatisfaction was directed at the coalition in Canberra.
Newman was scarcely helped by Tony Abbott's use of his captain's pick to confer an Aussie knighthood on Prince Philip on Australia Day. This was an act of such stunning political ineptitude that it's crystalised all the disparate opposition and raised real questions about whether Tony Abbott will survive to the next election.
A colleague makes a very reasonable point that this wasn't the PM's first use of his captain's pick - another was his decision to make the Japanese Soryu sub a serious contender, apparently as a goodwill gesture to his new best buddy, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe.
Maybe the PM was impressed that the Soryu is about the size Australia needs, though it would still need very extensive modification. That's also despite Japan's total absence of experience exporting any military equipment let alone something as complex as a submarine.
Then there's the sovereign risk. Japan is only now contemplating selling subs because of a reinterpretation of its avowedly pacifist constitution. A future government could reverse that overnight.
Should it stand, Australia's acquisition of Soryu subs, whether they are built in Japan or Adelaide, could end up as a folly akin to Seasprite helicopters, only with a lot more zeros.
This article first appeared in Australian Defence Magazine VOL.23 No.3, March 2015