Conned on defence: now it’s time to fix the mess

Australia’s Collins Class submarines will be refitted to extend their life. Picture: Supplied

Upgrading the old Collins class submarines is an essential first step towards solving the diabolical defence mess facing the nation.

Given the heightened security concerns, unless we reverse the series of disastrous defence decisions made in recent years our long-term future as a nation will be bleak.

Because we had the wrong people in charge we have been “conned” by a series of deceptions of unprecedented global magnitude. We are set to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and get little worthwhile in exchange - and what we do get will be too late.

There is no other country in the world that that has made defence mistakes on such a grand scale. With the help of some of our best defence people (they are not in the defence department) I will go through the three main grand deceptions and the best solutions still available to us. None of the choices are pleasant.

But before I do that I want to point out that, along with others, I have been relaying to readers for some years the deepening national crisis. Finally in February I pleaded with Prime Minister Scott Morrison to appoint either Treasurer Josh Frydenberg or then home affairs minister Peter Dutton to sort out the mess.

They were the two of the strongest ministers in the cabinet and in my view the only ones capable of tackling this horrendous but vital task.

Thankfully, 33 days later Dutton was sworn in as defence minister. His first task was not on my list - trying to restore shattered morale among our elite troops caused by bad management at the top.

Next was the $10bn decision to upgrade the Collins class submarines, which was announced in The Australian. This was forced on us because of the mess created by the first of the three great deceptions. Upgrading Collins was the right decision but it is complex task and must be carried out by people other than defence public servants who have shown they simply don’t have the engineering ability. They must take on an advice role.

Now, the three great deceptions:

Deception number one: Around 2015 the French sent to Australia a team headed by the brilliant negotiator Madame Marie Pierre de Bailliencourt. They put forward a proposal whereby there would be enormous Australian industry content including Australian-based research as part of a regional submarine research base. But that offer was a complete fiction. French head office had not the slightest intention of doing what their Australian negotiators had put forward. They contradicted it within 24 hours of the signatures.

Then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull with French defence officials in Adelaide in 2016, after sealing a new submarine deal. Picture: AAP

Not surprisingly we are still fighting over the hopeless situation that was created by the French deception. The French put in writing an indicative price of around $23bn in 2016 currency. To that you can add the American combat system and a few other extras. But that $23bn base price has now risen to a likely expenditure of between $120bn and $150bn (to conceal the rises misleading statements have been made). Delivery has been delayed and it will be well into the 2040s before we can use them. We are still fighting with the French over Australian industrial content because the French simply don’t have the ability to do, at a reasonable price, what their negotiators offered. And the Americans are reluctant to allow the French to see the most modern parts of their combat system. It is a total mess and it never had a chance from day one. There is no options B or C—we must end the $120bn - $150bn cost plus contract.

We now have China making veiled military threats so we must abandon local political niceties and act in the national interest. We are now far more dependent on America than at any time since World War II. To be fair to the navy, they have always wanted a nuclear-powered submarine. That’s what the Americans now also want us to do and it’s the only solution. We must put the project out to a tender between the French and the British who both have suitable nuclear submarines for Australia. It will involve explaining to the electorate that the navy will be operating nuclear engines - no vast industry is required. This wouldn’t have been possible in 2015 but now most Australians see the danger.

There is also the very desirable option of buying German or Swedish submarines as a stopgap before the nuclear submarines are available.

All of the contracts, including the Collins revamp, nuclear submarines and the German - Swedish submarine stopgaps must be based on substantial Australian content.

Deception 2: We wanted to buy a frigate that was operational and could take the American combat system and our radar.

Instead of buying the operational Italian frigate we bought the British frigate design that was not operational and could not take our radar system and the American combat system, and has a hangar for only one helicopter.

So we are now on a cost-reimbursable contract basically designing a new frigate which is based on the original British one. The British, harking back to colonial days, want British supply chains - a total nonsense. How could we be so stupid?

An Australian frigate undergoes missile trials.

The British waived a free-trade agreement with Australia as the carrot. I don’t know what’s in this proposed British trade agreement but if it doesn’t have open access to our agriculture then it’s not worth the paper it’s written on and certainly not worth spending vast amounts of money designing a frigate.

Again the answer is simple ---cancellation is in the best interests of the nation and the American alliance.

As an offset to the cancellation of the British frigate contract we can offer the opportunity for a British nuclear submarine and then work with the Americans on the Italian frigate, which has been very successful in America’s FFG (62) contract, with high US local content.

Deception 3: The Joint Strike Fighter was sold as a low operating cost 5th generation aircraft.

Again it’s a disaster and is not really suitable to our requirements. While it can undertake some functions, Chinese (and Russian) aircraft are better. But this is an American problem as much as it is an Australian problem.

I have written about the JSF debacle at length for many years and will return to the subject at a later date. There are solutions but Dutton will need advice outside Defence.

Australia must construct a world-class digitised defence manufacturing industry. We cannot place everything in South Australia so some will go to Western Australia and it’s also very important that the Williamstown shipyards which performed so well with the previous ANZAC Frigate be brought back into operation to make some of the modules.

That way we have at least three states working together and we can obviously extend that to New South Wales and Queensland.

A Joint Strike Fighter. Picture: Alex Coppel.