Shouldn't the focus be on what is best for the RAN?
Best equipment...best time scale....best for the taxpayers?
And the opposition leader talking to the bruvvers in Adelaide today was embarrassing. Jingoistic rubbish.
If the whole of SA and Victoria are on welfare because there are no jobs and the big (in particular the multinational) miners no longer have to pay a super profits tax, just as they are about to hit full production and maximum profits, more and more companies are sending jobs off shore and minimising tax, just who is actually going to pay tax so the government can afford to buy gear overseas? Buying ships and subs overseas is very short sited, it will save money upfront but will cause structural and financial issue for the economy that will last for decades and cost far more to reverse in future when a new government decided to restart local shipbuilding.
It will happen, it always does. Hawke didn't order a single ship to be built in Australia for years then in the 90s ordered local construction of two FFGs, eight ANZACs, and six submarines with options for two more subs and plans for a replacement for the DDGs and FFGs as well as a class of corvettes to replace the patrol boats. They rebuilt the shipbuilding from almost nothing to the point that ships were being delivered to specification, ahead of schedule and below budget. If the corvettes, air defence frigates and extra subs had been ordered this reborn, competitive industry would have had a continuous flow of work to sustain it indefinitely.
In 1996 Howard was elected and as with Hawke before him did not order a single new ship for eight years. Projects were cancelled, work forces dispersed, the industry, so expensively and successfully built up in the 90s withered and died. Then in 2004 Howard started rebuilding the industry again as it was seen as a strategic necessity, new patrol boats were the first cab off the rank, then the AWD and LHDs. The industry had shrunk so much that the LHD hulls had to be fabricated in Spain instead of locally and for some bizarre reason rather than building the AWDs in Williamstown that had done so well on the ANZACs a new yard was built in Adelaide and a new work force assembled and trained. Then the government changed again.
In comes Rudd in 2007, promises the world, 12 new subs, 20 new OCVs, six LCH replacements, new AORs and hints of a fourth AWD but not one ship ordered before he is knifed by Gillard. For years later (years I dearly want to forget) the ASC has been reviewed and reorganised half to death, the defence budget has been slashed, spending on the AWD has been slashed with many people made redundant and the project slowed to save money and still not one new ship ordered, two terms and six years and not one ship. Then the government changed.
New government, new broom and unfortunately the way things are going it looks like the industry will be killed off all together as it is now industries fault, not governments. No new orders, perhaps none for the life of this government but then again that's what everyone though of Howard and he ended up building a new shipyard and ordering the largest and most powerful ships the RAN has evr had from local yards.
Shipbuilding will always come back, it is a strategic necessity, it just takes new governments a term or two to see that and start rebuilding. The irony is if they just ordered the ships the RAN needs in a sensible and sustainable manner then there is plenty of work to keep local industry thriving and improving, delivering more for less as was seen with the ANZACs. Instead we see the industry wither an die only to be rebuilt at great expense later, it is almost a twenty year cycle of death and rebirth, growing, maturing then being killed only to be born again several years later.
