Western Australia wants ship and submarine maintenance work as part of the National Shipbuilding Plan

THE vast bulk of spending on ship and submarine maintenance is still up for grabs, and Western Australia is keen to get it.

THE vast bulk of spending on ship and submarine maintenance is still up for grabs, and Western Australia is keen to get it.

While the Federal Government insists there are “no plans” to change the current sustainment program – where South Australia does about two thirds of the work and WA about a third – nothing has been guaranteed.

The National Shipbuilding Plan released this week clearly shows that the decision is yet to be made.

“The Government will likely need to consider advice from Defence in coming years on appropriate long-term arrangements, including the location of Collins Class and Future Submarine sustainment activities,” it states.

“Decisions on this aspect of submarine capability management will not be needed for some time to come.”

The WA Labor Government says the “majority of sustainment should take place in WA”.

Defence Issues Minister Paul Papalia called on the Federal Government to be “open and transparent” about the split of the work between the two shipyards.

“There is little detail…and we share the same concern as our SA counterparts over the plan or lack thereof.”

Andrew Davies, the defence and strategy program director for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said WA weren’t interested in Defence work when they were “roaring along in the minerals boom” but that their capability was “impressive” and they could secure more of the work.

“In terms of the WA/SA split, it’s fairly clear that the politics of SA has hijacked this,” he said, adding that it was possible that when SA started work building the Future Submarines, all the sustainment work could go to WA.

Building the Navy’s next generation ships and submarines is an $89 billion project, with the sustainment worth more than twice that – although Dr Davies says the 30/70 split the Government uses is “overstated”.

South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, along with state and federal Labor, want to see both a mandated minimum Australian level of content and a breakdown of SA and WA work. Senator Xenophon said the plan did not make that clear.

“It seems that the door’s been opened to SA losing that sustainment work,” he said.

He also invited Dr Davies to SA to see the state’s defence capability.

“If he comes over sometime soon I’ll even throw in a yiros,” he said.