The cold truth behind Tony Abbott’s $89 billion SA defence spending

TONY Abbott never said $89 billion in shipbuilding cash was pretty much all for SA. Although you’d be forgiven for thinking most of it was.

Sourced from Wikipedia - Corvette Comandante Foscari of the Italian Navy - A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or "rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloop-of-war. The modern types of ship below a corvette are coastal patrol craft and fast attack craft. In modern terms, a corvette is typically between 500 tons and 2,000 tons[1] although recent designs may approach 3,000 tons, which might instead be considered a small frigate. The word "corvette" is first found in Middle French, a diminutive of the Dutch word corf, meaning a small ship, from the Latin corbis, meaning "basket".[2] The rank "corvette captain", equivalent in many navies to "lieutenant commander", derives from the name of this type of ship. The rank is the most junior of three "captain" ranks in several European navies (e.g. France, Spain, Italy) and South American navies (e.g. Argentina, Chile) because a corvette, as the smallest class of rated warship, was traditionally the smallest class of vessel entitled to a commander of a "captain" rank.

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ON islands scattered through the South Pacific, the locals built fake aeroplane landing strips, burning wood to make the landing lights.

During World War II, they also built wharves with whatever materials came to hand.

They believed they were about to enter a new age of plenty. They were expecting “cargo” — having seen American troops enjoying riches they’d never seen before.

They had seen magnificent largesse arrive by ship and plane and convinced themselves that if they just created the right conditions, some of it would come their way.

Even now, in Vanuatu, they celebrate a man called “John Frum” on February 15.

Frum is, they believe, a Western guy sporting army or navy clobber. They imagine he will bring them food and clothes, televisions and boats.

Their imagination is helped with some ceremonial kava.

In South Australia, submarines have a touch of the cargo cult about them.

There is a sense that the riches are about to flow into the state. Endless cans of Spam and televisions and bottles of Coca Cola. Jobs aplenty.

In part that’s because we’re all wishing so hard for something to fix SA. But it’s also because of the Government’s obfuscation as it bandied around that figure, $89 billion.

On August 4 last year — in the twilight of his Prime Ministership — Tony Abbott came to Adelaide. The Coalition vote was in trouble.

It was in trouble everywhere, but in SA Liberal MPs and Senators had really started to fire up about the shipbuilding and submarine issue. He announced a continuous shipbuilding program, “centred on” SA. That phrase allows some wriggle room.

He talked about Adelaide, South Australia, then said “we will start the build of the Offshore Patrol Vessels, or Corvettes, in 2018. We will start the build of the Future Frigates in 2020”.

Looking back, he never actually said the OPVs would be built in Adelaide. But that is the clear impression everyone had. Someone asked him if the work might go to WA, and he dodged a direct answer but said “This is where the bulk of the work will be done”.

He also never said the $89 billion was pretty much all for SA. Although you’d be forgiven for thinking most of it was. $89 billion. That’s the magic number.

It’s a total crock.

First of all, that’s $89 billion in 2040 dollars. If you track it back to 2015 you get roughly half that (that’s back of the envelope maths, but then, so was that headline figure).

Then you need to spread that figure over at least a couple of decades. So a couple of billion a year. Not to be sneezed at, but slightly less magic than $89 billion. Then it gets shared between the states.

That bodgy figure was broken down into $50 billion for submarines and $39 billion for the frigates and the OPVs.

So. $50 billion for the submarines, hey? Long before the contenders to help us design them had even put in their bids.

A number far greater than an old $36 billion estimate. Bigger than the Germans’ $20 billion estimate.

Similarly with the $39 billion — more than six months later we’re still going through the bids.

There was also confusion — mostly on the Government’s part — over whether those figures included sustaining the things.

The figure seems, at best, to be a guesstimate. But that guesstimate was meant to be our saviour.

A new age of plenty.

The announcement of a continuous shipbuilding plan was genuinely good news. It still is, even as we bicker over the division of the spoils.

But what we did was set up our little makeshift landing strips. We lit the welcoming fires for the magical goods. We prepared for the new dawn, and it turned out not to be quite as rosy as we had hoped.