Australia’s future in serious trouble thanks to nuclear submarine divide

Thanks to a failure in reading the fine print, Australia’s next generation of submarines are going to cost us far more than just $220 billion, writes Peta Credlin.

At best, it’s a $220 billion pork barrelling exercise that makes the sport rorts look like loose change, and at worst, it is a scandal that demands urgent investigation.

As revealed last week, you’d think that Christopher Pyne, the defence minister at the time, would have written Australian content into the contract.

But no, apparently, he didn’t. Which exposed his complaints last week as hollow when the French builders said that the latest Australian submarine might not even have 50 per cent local content despite the Pyne promises.

Make no mistake, the next generation Australian submarine, the largest defence project in our history by far, is in serious trouble.

If we proceed, in two decades time, we will have the start of a strategic deterrent which is not as good as the nuclear submarines operated by China, Russia, and even India. Or we could consider the nuclear powered submarine increasingly favoured by countries that take sea power seriously.

Australia should consider the nuclear powered submarine increasingly favoured by countries that take sea power seriously. Picture: BAE

After all, we have the US tank because we think it’s the best. We have the US joint strike fighter because we think it’s the best. Why shouldn’t we also – the argument runs – have the US nuclear powered sub because it’s the best?

But there’s no country – none – that runs nuclear submarines that doesn’t also have a nuclear power industry – and that’s specifically ruled out by an Australian law passed under the Howard government.

Let’s face it, a country that can’t build new baseload power stations, that can’t build big new dams, and that can’t even decide where to put a low level nuclear waste dump for the medical waste we produce here, is hardly going to produce nuclear submarines, even if they’re what we really need. As things stand, we’re a country that finds hard decisions and strong government very difficult indeed.

Peta Credlin is a columnist for The Daily Telegraph.

Originally published as Australia’s future in serious trouble thanks to nuclear submarine divide