Mate, no offense, but I would say your comments regarding to John somewhat applies to you as well.John, I don't believe anything Rex Patrick writes, he was a combat systems operator, not an engineer or boat driver, his speciality was acoustics, what a submarine does once it gets where its going, not how it gets there. His opinions are a mile off what those who actually know what RAN submarines need to be able to do think.
I am, I must admit, getting a little frustrated with some of your posts, you make some very good points but yes you do appear to me to be quite blinkered. You appear to be very politically biased and as such automatically dismissive of any points that do not fit your particular views. Anyone who supports Australian industry in your view is putting jobs above capability, apart from being inaccurate and misinformed I personally find it insulting. I no longer work in the industry but many outstanding people I know still do, people who are as good as any working elsewhere in the world, people who, so long as our political classes pull their heads out of their ....... are perfectly capable of building a class of next generation submarines, destroyers, frigates, whatever.
The problem John is political not industrial, one side has made it about local jobs and the other about foreign alliances (and bashing the other side with trumped up failures), both missing the point of what was achieved and what it can still be grown into. Your posts are just a reminder of the tactics being used by those determined to kill the industry for purely political reasons.
The irony is local submarine construction started as a concept under Frazer and would have proceeded no matter who was in power for the simple reason no one was building the sort of boats we needed. Just imagine how different things would be if the project had been kicked off under a Peacock or Howard government in the 80s instead of a Hawke one? Just imagine if instead of a stick with which to beat Kym Beazley to political death with it was a Liberal baby? Just imagine how different the spin would be if there was no political mileage to be made over the projects difficulties. Its not that hard actually just look what the government was saying about the Collins class and ASC in 2007, after 11 years and nationalising ASC there was no way Labor could be blamed anymore so all the bad press disappeared over night and all we heard was how great things were because of the hard work of the government.
No hard feeling, okay. No one want an industry dead, but at what cost? Right now, WE DO NOT HAVE A SUBMARINE BUILDING CAPABILITY NOW. Those in ASC who built the Collins are mostly gone. Therefore, no local submarine only mean no job gain, not job loss. And, unless we have a rolling build programme just like the frigates, a local build submarine programme will only repeat the the scenario we got in the Collins.
And that's why, I support the local build frigates & OPV, as we the number to keep at least one yard busy. But not for a local submarine, especially if we are going to get only 8 and the premium for local build may cost our navy get even less.
There are many way for SA to create jobs and save/create manufacturing, hijacking the defence plan of the whole nation is not the way.