The recent rise in tensions in Ukraine and Taiwan come as two of our three major defence equipment blunder dominoes — the Joint Strike Fighter-F-35 and the Frigates — start to shake.
In turn this has underlined our lack of defence equipment preparedness and increasing reliance on the US.
The first and biggest of the defence blunder dominoes was, of course, the submarine contract with the French which thankfully for the nation has been cancelled and replaced by AUKUS, partnership with the US and UK to deliver nuclear submarines.
The second domino, the long running JSF/F-35 saga, has seen Australian reports finally confirming the problems that I and others have been revealing for many years.
The third and arguably the least excusable of the three dominoes, the Frigates, will have a very public fall because the contract is a shambles. Peter Dutton has been a brilliant Defence minister but he made the mistake of defending the Frigate blunder.
Whereas the ALP have never fully recognised the JSF and submarine defence errors they understand the Frigates and they believe they have Peter Dutton cornered. As I will explain below he has a potential way out.
The JSF-F-35 has serious short comings and is no match for the equivalent Chinese or Russian aircraft which can operate at much higher levels. But the maintenance difficulties the US has experienced on the ground are now being duplicated in Australia
My colleague, Ben Packham revealed that defence has reduced the JSF/F35 flying hours by 25 per cent this financial year.
The US Government Accountability Office has repeatedly reported that the US F-35 fleet is failing to meet its availability targets. The head of the US air force last year likened the F-35 to a Ferrari that should be driven only on Sundays, due to engine-wear and other problems. The next step for defence is to confirm to the parliament that their research shows the equivalent Chinese and Russian aircraft are superior. Australia is now very exposed in the air because the US does not have the F-22 aircraft permanently operating in the region. Both the submarine and JSF mistakes have “excuses”.
The submarine mistake was in part caused because the French “conned” us while in the case of the JSF our backing of the project was in line with our US defence alliance.
But in the case of the Frigates, it was simply a mistake by our defence people. There is no one else to blame.
When they planned the order for the nine Frigates defence wanted a vessel that was already in the water. Instead we bought a vessel where the design was not completed and later discovered but it could not take the required US combat system and our radar system.
BAE Systems contracted to deliver nine Hunter class frigates and acquired ASC Shipbuilding from the Australian Government in 2018.
Accordingly they are now in the process of redesigning the original vessel for Australian needs. It appears they may have already spent one to two billion dollars
I believe the following report circulating around defence circles from reliable people I cannot name summarises the disaster:
“The Hunter Class Frigate design is so fundamentally flawed that it could only be remediated by starting again with a clean sheet of paper. The designer, by now, is well aware of the design’s issues but has progressed so far commercially that there is no face-saving exit for them.
The Defence Department is aware that the Hunter has serious problems but is “hopeful” that the designer can improve the design with additional time with the best-case outcome of delivering a significantly compromised capability to the RAN.
The Department and Government have agreed to the most recent program delay on this basis.
The Department has no organic capability to perform an independent review of the design status, instead is reliant on advice by the designer.
“The Government’s reaction has been to apply pressure to their UK counterparts to “sort it out”. While this no doubt applies pressure to the designer, it does not alter the fundamental reality that the Hunter design, based on Type-26 reference design, is undeliverable or at the very best will deliver an embarrassingly compromised capability”
The BAE systems group must know that this is a looming disaster but it is not easy to tell Australia that they have just wasted around $2 billion and that they will end up paying a fortune for an inadequate vessel.
Understandably Peter Dutton does not want to announce another defence blunder on the eve of an election.
One obvious way out is to do what ever is required to take advantage of the fact that the Frigate contractor BAE also makes the latest version of the British nuclear submarines that use US nuclear technology. For our purposes the British submarine is more suitable than the US version which is larger.
A contract swap over would be an elegant solution but we would still need to admit to a $2 billion mistake.
Australia can then buy fully operational Frigates and have them built in Australia at a fraction the cost. And we will have Frigates that meets our requirements rather than the compromised vessel that will emerge from the current mess.
More Coverage
New cold war? America fights back over DeepSeek
China outmanoeuvred the US with the launch of DeepSeek. But the US’s biggest tech companies are fighting back to maintain dominance in the AI race.
Annuities a retirement product with a future
The time has come to offer retirees a set income for life through annuities and it could be done with the help of Australia’s Future Fund.