OpinionWhat are the submarines really protecting: Australia or federal seats?
/ By Terry BarnesWith little in the way of strategic justification, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the $50 billion submarines project is actually about bailing out South Australia as a tight election nears, writes Terry Barnes.
Yesterday the Turnbull Government announced a highly-anticipated $50 billion deal with French defence firm DCNS to build 12 new submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, flanked by Defence Minister Marise Payne, Industry minister Christopher Pyne and a host of South Australian MPs, announced the new boats would be built in South Australia. The Government claims the project will "will directly sustain around 1100 Australian jobs and a further 1700 Australian jobs through the supply chain".
The DCNS announcement came after an intensive evaluation of French, German and Japanese tenders, surprising many as the Abbott government previously had signalled favouring the Japanese bid.
The Government insists the evaluation provided the "information required to select DCNS as the most suitable international partner to develop a regionally-superior future submarine to meet our unique national security requirements, as detailed in the 2016 Defence White Paper."
Loading...Detailed? If you call eight paragraphs in a 190-page policy white paper detailed. Those eight paragraphs essentially say the world's a more dangerous place, the six Collins class submarines we have aren't enough but 12 is adequate, the 12 new boats will be built on a rolling basis from the late 2020s until the 2050s, and key capabilities of the future submarines will include anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and support to special operations.
Granted, there's a lot of expert opinion (and Australian Defence Force wish-listing) behind those paragraphs, but that's very little to justify a $50 billion investment.
Furthermore, the White Paper, the Government, a Labor Opposition equally committed to new submarines, the RAN and ADF, defence industries and the South Australian government haven't really justified to the lay Australian public why any submarines are needed at all, let alone 12 of them.
While Australia is an island with a 36,000km littoral coastline, and we depend on Indian and Pacific Ocean sea-lanes for our trade, we have an effective smallish but powerful surface fleet of frigates, patrol boats and other large specialised vessels, including two new large amphibious support ships.
Beyond these existing units, an extensive building programme of new Future Frigates and two classes of patrol boats vessels was announced by Turnbull and Payne just last week. All our current and future large surface vessels have range and reach across our Pacific and Indian Ocean access routes, enabling the RAN to work independently or in concert with America and other allies.
What do submarines add? Are they going to surface off hostile coasts and drop covert landing parties? Are they going to torpedo enemy surface ships in a conflict, as HMS Conqueror sank Argentina's General Belgrano in the 1982 Falklands war? Certainly, the job description in the White Paper sounds like the synopsis of a 1950s World War II submarine movie, with gallant commander John Mills upping his periscope.
The Government and defence brass should be honest with us: these submarines really are desirable rather than essential to Australia's defence capability. They may enable the RAN to play with the blue-water US, Russian and NATO navies but, when the Government insists we need to live within our national means, is that really worth $50 billion that could better be spent on education, health or simply retiring debt?
Then there are practical doubts. Putting aside the well-documented design, operational and maintenance problems with the Collins Class submarines, or the conventional versus nuclear submarine argument, how are we going to man twice as many boats? As it is, we are struggling to keep even half our existing half-dozen submarines operational because we can't recruit enough volunteer men and women into the Silent Service.
In February, just as the White Paper was being put to bed, it was reported RAN submariners will be given annual lump sum payments of up to $50,000, and other inducements, just for staying aboard. Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, argued submariners wanted a better work-life balance, more opportunities for promotion and more money if they were to stay in their demanding and stressful jobs.
Even allowing for new boats needing fewer crew, the attractions of going to sea in a claustrophobic steel tube clearly aren't great enough to ensure a fully operational submarine force as being envisaged. And, who knows, by 2030 cutting-edge submarines may well be land-operated drones and these new boats will be as obsolete as the retiring Collins class.
So forget the White Paper's spiel. The real significance of yesterday's announcement was summed up in the Prime Minister's staccato tweet:
The particular point is that they will be built in South Australia, the nation's rustbelt state where manufacturing jobs dominate a flailing economy struggling to adjust to the "transitioning" economy Turnbull loves talking about.
That the submarines could be built far more cheaply in France and Europe is irrelevant. No, we must have them built here, because they are not only protecting defence manufacturing and shipbuilding jobs. They are also protecting South Australian federal seats about to be hotly contested by the Liberals, Labor and Nick Xenophon's insurgent populist party. Both major parties desperately want this gargantuan capital investment with Xenophon breathing down their necks, and by golly they're getting it.
What the rest of us will get is a $50 billion job creation and corporate welfare bailing bucket keeping struggling industries afloat, giving muted hope to the steelworkers of Whyalla gutted by steelmaker Arrium's going into voluntary administration earlier this month, and succouring a state Labor government with precious little to cling to economically.
Dividing $50 billion by those 2800 jobs the PM talked about makes them worth almost $18 million each: let's hope the astronomical project cost is worth every one.
With strategic justifications unconvincing, it's hard to avoid presuming the new submarines' actual purpose is bailing out South Australia as a tight election nears. Hopefully, unlike the Collins Class boats they're replacing, they won't need bailing out themselves.
Terry Barnes is a policy consultant, former senior Howard government adviser and weekly columnist for The Drum. Twitter: @TerryBarnes5
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