On the other hand if all are built here by ASC, then no doubt industry and the workers would be the winners, but I suppose there is the potential for delays and cost overruns which could potentially affect the RAN, at least in the early years.
Actually once Australia commits to a decent size, or ongoing build and have had the benefit of the first couple of hulls to get up to speed, Australian yards have proven more than capable of delivering on time and budget. An issue in the past is Australian governments have expected (dictated) unrealistic schedules and budgets for green fields or virtually mothballed existing yards, they have managed projects in ways that no competent private company ever would and then blamed industry / unions / the workers / their predecessors for failings that in reality were nothing more than unrealistic expectations and poor forecasting.
Look for example at the Super Hornet acquisition for an idea of how it should be run, when announced it was costed at $10 billion for ten years, more than the cost of the AWD and no one blinked, no one was shocked or surprised, they just accepted this very realistic costing (provided by the US) and got on with life. Now had this been done with the Collins or AWD program, that is reasonable and honest costing with a reasonable and honest schedule, with allowances built in for the unknowns and teething problems that can reasonably be expected in such a project things would be very different today. Had they been costed and scheduled taking risk into account and making reasonable allowances for such, both projects would have come in ahead of schedule and under budget.
Another example is the ANZAC project, it was scheduled and costed based on the experience with the FFG build but came in ahead of schedule and under budget as many problems and issues planned for did not occur. It was an established design from a designer with extensive experience supporting local builds for their customers, built in a modernised yard with an experienced work force that had just come off another warship build. The Collins and AWD on the other hand were both from designers that had never exported a design or even worked with another nation on a project, they were both green fields sites and both relied on new inexperienced work forces that had to be trained as they built the first hulls. Both projects were judged in their early performance on the first hulls built, found wanting and crucified by government. They were hit with review after review, reorganisations, redundancies, forced resignations of senior personnel and yet still managed to improve as the level of experience increased and the issues with the designs and designers were sorted out. In spite of this their reputations were shot and they suffered continual attacks from the media and new government who were determined not to deviate from their chosen narrative no matter the evidence to the contrary because it was just too easy a target and to stop may have led the public to question why the original costings and schedules were wrong.
Had AWD been scheduled on the basis it would take two years to get the yard up to speed while everyone including the designer and contractors learnt on the job on ship one and the first ship had been costed to include multiple pilot builds recommended by ASC's industry partner Bath Iron Works at the start of the project, say an additional $500 million for the longer schedule, training requirement and pilot builds, then the project would today be ahead of schedule and below cost. This is not hind sight as I was at meetings in 2009 where experienced senior managers were saying just that the schedule was too tight and did not factor in the need for pilot builds and skilling a new workforce. With pilot builds the errors BAE made in the keel blocks would have been made on the pilot blocks instead, issues would have been identified and fixed before work on ship 1 began.
In the future we need to be smarter and one way to do this is to let experienced and competent people have more say in costings and schedule rather than having things tricked up by politicians and their advisers who are usually lawyers, economists etc. rather than engineers, accountants, project managers.
Look at the mining construction boom, billions invested without government interference projects scheduled and costed in the real world for the real world. Changes made to the projects and their scheduling in the light of the effect of external factors, no blame no carry on, just rescheduled and recosted to account for changing circumstances and get on with the job. None of this situation we get in defence where the Government, usually just PM&C make a decision, often ignoring professional advice, pluck some figures and timings out of the air, in the full knowledge by the time it goes wrong someone else will be accountable, and push start.
Looking at the Royal Commission into the governments management of the insulation program and how it has actually held parliamentarians and senior public servants to account, I wonder if we also need one into the governments management of naval shipbuilding in Australia from 1995 onwards. It would review ANZAC, Collins, AWD, LHD, ACPB, leased and purchased ships, their perfomnce in service and overall cost effectiveness of the selected designs as opposed to upfront costs. It would also look at the alternatives that were cancelled or not selected and seek professional guidance on how the alternatives would have performed had they been procured instead of what was actually selected, i.e. steel or GRP hulled PBs instead of aluminium, perhaps the Tenix corvettes instead of patrol boats etc, replacement tankers built locally instead of double hulling Success and buying Sirius, ships ordered in time to replace older vessels rather than panicked, often unsuccessful life extensions and leases when it is left too late.
Not going to happen but it would be very interesting, Keating held to account for diverting from the carefully planned and funded rejuvenation of the RAN, Howard for the first black hole, failed and unnecessary or poorly executed upgrade programs costing billions (more than just building suitable new ships as had been planned) and ordering the wrong ships and setting unrealistic schedules and costing once orders were placed again. Rudd / Gillard / Rudd for not ordering a single new ship in six years even while there were existing programs just crying out for options to be taken up and changed operational needs screaming for more capable platforms (patrol boats anyone) and now Abbott for not even looking at local construction options for new tankers that would actually be much easier and cheaper to construct locally than submarines or frigates.
