I suppose everyone here can put there spin on the 'who, what, where and why' with todays announcement, for what it's worth, here's mine (without specifics of which design will eventually be selected).
Defence Ministers » Prime Minister and Minister for Defence – Continuous Naval Shipbuilding
Reading, and re-reading today's announcements, I can see logic behind the 'who, what, where and why' that I mentioned above. Starting at the bottom end first.
PPB-R
On the one hand bit surprised to see the Damen / Nth Qld build option miss out, but on the other hand, with the Cape Class PB's build coming to an end, then I can see the sense in using the existing Austal facility being utilised to build the PPB-R's, and of course the PPB-R's will be maintained in Nth Qld which puts the sustainment on the 'door step' of the majority of the users, win for WA and Nth Qld.
OPV
As announced today, the build will start in SA and eventually move to WA, this confirms a comment last year when the Abbott Government announced the bringing forward the construction of the OPV's and Future Frigates, it was either the PM or the Def Min of that time, said something about the OPV's starting assembly in SA, but the continuing question of where the remainder of the OPV's would be built was an open question, especially once construction of the Future Frigates started.
Again makes sense to me, I would imagine that the 'window of opportunity' or 'valley of death' (depending on your point of view), between the end of major works on the AWD's and the start of the Future Frigates, will obviously allow for the 're use' of the facilities for the AWD's to be used for the first of the OPV's (maybe between 2-3 or 4 hulls max?).
Now some might say, but facilities will have to be built at Henderson in WA to complete the remainder of the OPV build, why not use the facilities existing at Techport? Well actually there are no 'separate' existing facilities at Techport to build the OPV's.
Have a look at the SA Government's flythrough of Techport:
Techport Flythrough
Even in the SA Government's own 'future view' of Techport, they are suggesting that facilities would have to be built for the OPV's (assuming this is for the full fleet of 12 hulls), then it's pretty clear, in my opinion, that the start of construction for the OPV's will happen by using the 'existing' AWD facilities as a stop gap before moving the build to WA to allow for the Future Frigates to be built in Techport.
Future Frigates
Regardless of which design is chosen (and that is whole other discussion as with the OPV's), the nine Future Frigates will be assembled at Techport, the outstanding question will be how much block work will be shared around and where?
For the three different classes of ships mentioned above, I would imagine that the PPB-R's will be completely built in WA (possibly with components and various parts make in other states), the OPV's and Future Frigates on the other hand will be made from blocks, the big question is going to be where will the blocks be built?
Obviously I can see block work being performed in both SA and WA for their respective main classes of ships being built, but are we going to see a repeat of block work for NSW and VIC as with the AWD? That's a question yet to be answered, and I suppose what 'facilities' are still active and operational at that time too.
For ongoing support and sustainment of the various fleets, it's clear that the PPB-R's will be supported in Cairns, I'd imagine that the OPV's would also be supported in Cairns, Darwin and possibly at Henderson too for more 'major' upgrades. The Future Frigates, that could be split between both Henderson and here in Sydney at Garden Island in the future.
Anyway, that's my two cents worth!!!
Cheers,