Even if that means the other services are hamstrung and aren't effectively equipped and prepared for the future? I fail to see how the defence of the nation should be prejudiced just so a couple of thousand South Australians can have a job. We can have a strong Navy without Australian shipbuilding. The question is can we have a strong Australian Defence Force WITH Australian shipbuilding? It's a zero sum game afterall - ever dollar spent subsiding an industry that will forever be entirely reliant on government orders is a dollar less being spent on actual defence capabilities.
I'm all for Australian shipbuilding (why wouldn't I be?) but not at the cost of cannibalising the rest of the ADF to do so.
The local submarine build grew out of the success of local modernisations and upgrades of the Oberon class, which in turn grew out of local sustainment. It was about capability, cost and value for money but due to politically motivated spin and parochial rent seeking it has become about jobs.
Australia developed a local sustainment capability for cost and availability reasons as returning the boats to the UK for work was expensive and time consuming. The RANs differing needs to the RNs in relation to combat systems upgrades led to a highly successful local upgrade program that, among other things, incorporated Mk-48 torpedoes and Harpoon missiles, creating arguably the most effective and capable Oberon class submarines and one of the most capable conventional submarines of the time.
The success of the Oberon upgrades led to the next logical step of full local construction for the replacement class as Australian industry and defence project management had mastered the hardest parts. Contrary to the rhetoric and ill-informed opinion, the local build was a success, there were problems but no more than those encountered on similar projects and all were remedied. The major single issue was the combat system and the government were advised of, but chose to ignore the major non-conformances.
The issue since completion of the build has been the politicization of the project, including the nationalisation of ASC which coincided with the restructure and bureaucracitisation of defence procurement and project management. Suddenly no one in government was accountable and the major industry participant was government owned and subject to the whims of the finance minister. Professional advice was ignored, needed work was deferred or cancelled while money was spent on 'sexy' upgrades, such as heavy weight torpedoes and replacement combat system. Any disputes or disagreements between DMO and ASC were settled by sacking/replacing ASC executives with more compliant individuals and making a couple of dozen experienced technical people redundant in the name of efficiency. When the predicted performance issues manifested in the fleet it was automatically ASCs fault, there would be a panic spend to remediate the situation, throwing money and expensive contractors at the problem, an enquiry would be launched, its findings (unless already scripted) would be ignored sand there would be another new broom and more redundancies.
The end result of all of that is the situation we have now, we wasted billions (not just on submarines) by ignoring experts and having to remedy the very issues the experts warned against. These experts, or their successors, are blamed for the results of budgetary decisions, made for political reasons by politicians and senior public servants in PM&C and Finance, and far more is spent in remediation than it would have cost to have done it properly in the first place.
IMO its not about stripping money from other capabilities to create and support jobs in an inefficient, ineffective, uncompetitive industry, it's about spending enough upfront to guarantee and strategically necessary industry can perform efficiently, effectively and competitively can get it right without having to strip resources from elsewhere to rectify issues down the track.
The reason money is being taken from LAND 400 is not that jobs need to be created in SA, but because successive governments failed to do the minimum required to maintain required capabilities from the late 90s. Suitable replacements for the DDGs were not ordered in a timely manner, the FFG upgrade was poorly conceived and executed, the Armidale Class Patrol Boats were not capable of fulfilling their required role, nor durable enough to last for their planned service life and the various fat ships were not adequately maintained.
