I don’t know what the situation with the Arafuras is, but when a new builder or designer first sets up in Australia there are ALWAYS compliance with regulations and certification issues. To take one small example, EU and Australian electrical standards, while very similar, are not identical. And Australian law, under which AMSA as the certifier of ships not yet part of the Navy has to operate, requires that any ship (or anything else for that matter) built here must meet the Australian standard. (That to some extent ignores certain equivalence provisions, but they don’t invalidate the argument.). And that is only one example amongst many.
Then, of course, they also have to also meet the Navy’s, usually somewhat different requirements - but also requirements set up under Australian lawn to meet Navy’s particular operating circumstances. That adds another layer of complexity.
Getting that start up to understand those requirements is a long and time consuming process, and implementing them (and proving compliance) is also not done overnight. We might not like it, but the only way around these issues - and some of them will apply to the new FF - would be to exempt Navy from certain Australian laws, particularly parts of the WHS act but also many others, and that would, I believe, be unacceptable to the majority of Australians - and probably the majority of people in the Navy.
The average person has no idea how much impact international regulations, treaties, as well as Australian Federal and state requirements have on projects in general, let alone things as complex as warships.
Why do people think there have been similar issues with offshore gas, and major infrastructure and building projects?
Quite a few people, including too many project and commercial managers for my liking, are of the attitude that technical people who point these things out are road blocks and time wasters and the solution is to bipass them, get rid of them, hire more compliant (as in do what they are told, not what they are supposed to do), or even offshore entire projects.
What happens when the processes aren't followed or don't exist?
- Arafura
- Supply (A0R)
- Gorgon gas project
- building cracking and collapses
- bridge collapses
- rework on road projects
- new cars having multiple safety recalls
- aircrashes
This is not an Australian problem, it is a global problem. In the west it is the MBA culture and corruption, in the rest of the world it is totalitarianism and criminalise. Easy simple answers are the go-to of the simple minded populists and thugs who run, or believe they should run things.
The thinkers, the artisans, the technocrats and scientists are being demonised by opportunists and their dribbling moron followers. Hell, even historians are in the gun when they produce archival evidence of what really happened in the past when it doesn't fit current narratives.
Sorry about the rant but we are where we are because of offshoring and shrinking our hard won sovereign design capability.
Look at the Australianised CMS on the Hobart's, it worked. Look at ANZAC ASMD, and the Collins Replacement Combat System and Heavy Weight Torpedo. Look at Tiger, and MU-90, Australia had to take the lead as we overtook the parent operators. This was locally managed and run complex integration and certification work that worked well.
Now we are outsourcing it and it's going to shit. Military Systems integration used to be one of our strengths, now it's been gutted. Look at the results.
