All guns blazing at Osborne with 1000 tradies wanted as frigate work starts

After an 18-month delay, BAE Systems Maritime says it is making up for lost time – with the company looking to hire 1000 extra tradies in the next three years.

The construction of the first Hunter anti-submarine warfare frigate at the Osborne shipyard is under way, with BAE Systems Maritime confirming the first “cut’’ of steel happened in May and the facility has added an extra shift as production ramps up.

BAE Systems Maritime chief executive Craig Lockhart also said the company would be hiring 1000 extra tradies, building on the current 200, by 2026 as the $45bn Hunter shipbuilding program moved into full swing.

Mr Lockhart said BAE had recovered most of the time lost when the program was paused for 18 months as ship design was finalised. Last month BAE also started a second shift at the shipyard, meaning it is now working 16 hours a day.

“We’ve recovered 13 months of that and we’re working on ship one, even though the contract doesn’t get signed until next year,’’ he said.

“We’ve already cut steel on something we call schedule protection blocks, which is actually ship one’’.

Craig Lockhart, BAE Systems Maritime Australia chief executive. Picture: James Elsby

BAE expects to hand over the first frigate to the Royal Australian Navy in 2031.

Mr Lockhart said what it called “units’’ were now being built. There are four units to a “block’’ and the Hunter will comprise 76 blocks. Two blocks should be complete by the end of the year.

However, Mr Lockhart said his biggest concern remained finding skilled workers.

“I think we’ve always got chronic unease about that,’’ he said.

Mr Lockhart called on the federal government to make defence a jobs “national priority’’ and to eliminate state rivalries to ensure better value for money.

“Let’s look at defence as a national agenda, let’s channel our investment very carefully rather than have all the states compete,’’ he said,

With SA and WA as manufacturing hubs, he said, Victoria could be home to systems engineering, while Sydney could offer logistics support. He also said there was no time to waste.

“My worry is we’re going to take another two years to come up with the operating model (to produce skilled workers),’’ he said.

Mr Lockhart, who has long experience in Britain’s defence and civil nuclear defence industries, said training must start now to prepare for the proposed future nuclear submarines.

He said the industry would need up to 400 people with “deep nuclear qualifications’’ and it would take up to 10 years to train them.

The Australian nuclear submarine will be based on a BAE design and Mr Lockhart said if construction was at Osborne the shipyard would need another 5000 workers.

He said he hoped the so-called “valley of death’’ for shipbuilding was over, even though the federal government was conducting another “review’’ to examine future fleet needs, leading to speculation Hunter could be downgraded.

“Under both, the last government and this government have committed to continuous naval shipbuilding,’’ he said. “I think that message has landed.’’

However, he also said Australian governments had to stop second-guessing and chopping and changing shipbuilding strategy.

“At the start of programs, we give them a really hard time, we question the merits of it, we think about changing our minds and then we push through and say, ‘hey, how good was that,’” he said.

Mr Lockhart said the current Hunter design could be adapted to a new generation of air warfare destroyers that could increase the number of missile cells from 32 to 120 and could also be built in SA.