The government owes no one a good paying job. We live in a global economy today. Governments worldwide are deciding who they will subsidize. The governments don't mind subsidizing efficient proficient industries, but do mind when they aren't proficient. When it becomes cheaper for the government to put you on the dole than pay the subsidy, any sound government will choose to do so. The taxpayers demand this. Yes, it is better to subsidize and keep the money inside a nation, but there is a limit to the subsidy.
The government nationalised ASC in 2000 they are the owner and it is their (Howard, Rudd, Gillard and Abbott) fault, end of story.
Korea has a world leading shipbuilding industry because their government paid for it and supported it until it could stand on its own feet. If not for USN orders the majority of US shipyards would fall over, are you suggesting the US should buy their ships from Korea or maybe China or Vietnam who are cheaper again?
Successive Australian governments have spent billions reforming and rebuilding the shipbuilding industry only to see their successors kill it off through lack of work and then spent billions rebuilding it again, absolutely stupid.
In its short life (7 years) ASC shipbuilding has been established a separate company, reabsorbed into ASC submarines (with many of the experienced headhunted managers made redundant), control given over to Raytheon, had most of its senior mangers replaced and reshuffled and now looks to be separated out of ASC submarines again with new experienced shipbuilding managers to be head hunted, its a F**king merry-go-round!
How in gods name does anyone expect ships to be built with that sort of shite happening continually? Like I said government owned, government driven changes and cost cutting and the government blaming the company for the result.
Three years ago BEA (Tennix) were the worst shipbuilder in Australia, the quality of their work was shoddy and it was significantly behind schedule. As a private company determined to succeed they replaced some key personnel, recruited and trained additional staff and fixed the problems, they are now arguably the best shipbuilder in Australia. They basically did what ASC Shipbuilding did when they were set up in the first place and it worked, ASC on the other hand was forced to make cuts by its owner resulting in under performance. My team for instance was meant to have four people, it had one and then I left, I was replaced but my replacement has been moved on and no one knows what is happening now. The problem is national and international legislation says the work I was doing has to be done or the ships cant be accepted. I anticipate about a year before ship one is due to be handed over they will hire a team of a dozen and also contract an external agency and consultants (at ludicrous expense) to help complete what I was doing on my own for ship one and would have needed an extra person or two to help with ships two an three.
Again it is the governments fault, they make the decisions so they need to accept the blame. Interestingly ever one seems to forget Smith getting up and stretching the schedule to save money short term through more redundancies and a recruitment freeze, now its the company's fault when in fact it was government policy!