Future submarine project costs and timeline blows out
The cost of the future submarine fleet has ballooned to $225 billion for construction and maintenance, and construction of the first vessel delayed until 2024, according to defence officials.
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The cost of the future submarine fleet has ballooned to $225 billion for building and maintenance.
Funds earmarked for the attack-class vessels construction has soared by 60 per cent, defence officials revealed on Friday
The project cost and its timeline came under the microscope at an Estimates hearing in Canberra.
Government documents had estimated the construction of 12 submarines in Adelaide by Naval Group, would cost greater than $50 billion.
But when asked the price tag yesterday, Head of the Future Submarine Program Rear Admiral Greg Sammut said the price tag had risen to "of the order of $80 billion”.
He also confirmed that future submarine sustainment until 2080 came with a $145 billion price tag, raising the total to $225 billion.
“It is only an estimate of the sustainment of the fleet, we are designing the sub today,” Rear Admiral Sammut said.
The construction of the first Future Submarine was scheduled to commence in 2022-23.
But Rear Admiral Sammut today said it would begin in 2024, and that there was a “high risk” that the new submarines would not be delivered by 2032.
Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles said the government needed to come clean about when the first of the Future Submarines actually become operational.
“This is the most expensive acquisition Australia has ever bought and we have now learnt it is 60 per cent more expensive than we were first told,” he said.
“On all three measures of this program; on the time of delivery, on the cost of the project and the amount of Australian content – the numbers are all going the wrong way.”
Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick said he was concerned that “an important review milestone” was nine months late.
He said when delays happen early in the project, timelines rarely recovered.
Defence Minister Linda Reynolds denied the subs would be technologically obsolete by the time they hit the water.
She said money had been set aside to upgrade the new Collins Class submarines, if and when such works were required.
But a decision about whether Collins Class full-cycle docking will be moved from South Australia to Western Australia will be made before the end of 2019, Senator Reynolds told the hearing.
The Advertiser this week revealed speculation was mounting the decision on full cycle docking, which impacts 700 shipyard jobs, will be pushed back into the New Year.
Senator Patrick said he was glad the decision would be in coming weeks because the ASC submarine workforce had “been on tenter hooks for too long”.