Matthew Abraham: Marshall must make sure our nuclear subs deal can never be torpedoed

SA is in line to build Australia’s nuclear submarines. We’ve been here before though, writes Matthew Abraham.

ASssubmarines go, the HMAS Ovens was pretty much on its last sea legs back in 1984.

But then Labor premier John Bannon was just hitting his stride.

Bannon was running against the NSW and Victorian Governments for the $5bn contract to build six new submarines to replace the navy’s creaking Oberon-class boats.

He needed a stunt. A crazy one. So, he arranged to be lowered from a navy Sea King helicopter on to the deck of HMAS Ovens for an eight-hour jaunt under the briny blue off NSW’s Jervis Bay.

As The Advertiser’s political reporter, I followed him down, with the unexpected help of one of the chopper crew, sublieutenant Ian Parrot.

SA Premier John Bannon is lowered from a helicopter on to the deck of the HMAS Ovens submarine.

As I sat frozen, like the proverbial dead parrot, on the edge of the chopper’s open door, the rotors beating above and the deck of the sub wallowing on the surface 25m below, Parrot planted his boot on my bum and literally kicked me out of the chopper to be winched down to the sub.

We toured the boat, including the pointy end, where the crew kept its beer chilled in two obsolete torpedo tubes.

It was claustrophobic and the inescapable smell of diesel turned me a lighter shade of green. The cook served our lunch in the captain’s cramped stateroom – enormous T-bones drowning in tinned mushroom gravy. I tucked in and was right as rain.

Once the sub dived, we could have been going around in circles in Jervis Bay for all we knew, but it didn’t matter.

The stunt was the point of this particular war game.

Bannon won the Collins-class submarine contract, laying the foundations for a defence industry that still powers the state – and another two election victories.

Ten days ago, Premier Steven Marshall lost the contract to replace Bannon’s submarine fleet. With not even a solitary sonar “ping”, Prime Minister Scott Morrison junked the eye-watering $90bn contract with France to build a fleet of subs in Adelaide to replace the Collins force.

In a decision with global ramifications, the PM has committed Australia to instead build eight nuclear-powered submarines at Adelaide’s Osborne shipyards in a “forever partnership” with the US and Britain, our old new best friends.

Premier Steven Marshall finds some enjoyable reading at ASC. Picture: Kelly Barnes. Picture: Kelly Barnes

The total cost is unknown but it’ll be somewhere north of $100bn.

Right now, however, SA has lots of promises but no submarine contract.

Premier Marshall can’t be blamed for this because this is the PM’s big game, creating the awkwardly named AUKUS “security partnership” with the US and UK.

But the inconvenient truth is we don’t know how many submarines will be built in Adelaide, how they’ll be built, when they’ll be built and, for the pessimists, or realists, if they’ll ever be fully built here.

The PM has declared the nuke-powered subs will be built in Adelaide, declaring “the lift will only go up, it won’t go down”. What does that actually mean?

He says construction will start on the submarines “within the decade” and the first vessel will be operational “before the end of next decade”.

That’s 20 years away, roughly. The last Collins-class sub left Osborne in March 2003.

The Defence Department will now embark on an 18-month “consultation period” with the US and Britain to nut out how to make all this happen, a wildly optimistic timeline on past performances.

Australia has blown $2.4bn to date on the scrapped French deal and the legal battle over compensation – estimated to be roughly $400m – could take three years.

It’s possible Australia may lease a couple of the mighty US Virginia-class submarines from the Yanks or that the Brits will station a few of their nuked-up Astute-class subs here, to keep China on its toes.

The seriously good news out of this confusion is that SA has definitely secured a suite of defence projects, including the highly-prized Collins-class submarines full-cycle docking project.

That means the brilliant Collins subs will continue to be the gift that keeps on giving for SA.

Scott Morrison may not even be Prime Minister by this time next year. Will his successor – Liberal or Labor – still want the lift to go up, not down?

Would a potential PM Anthony Albanese and foreign minister Penny Wong, both big lefties, be enthusiastic about delivering the Morrison nuke deal?

Premier Marshall’s job now is to nail the commonwealth’s feet to the deck on the nuclear submarine build for SA. Failure isn’t an option.

Trust me, when you get a boot in the backside, the only way into a submarine is down.