Four years with no subs a secret

The astounding revelation that Australia had almost no submarines available to defend itself for at least four years from 2009 to 2012, during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, underlines the depth of the problems that must be fixed to bring the nation’s defences up to an acceptable standard in what is now a more dangerous region. The state of the Collins-class submarines over the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years was a closely guarded state secret, with only the now famous front-page story by Cameron Stewart in The Australian in June 2011 giving the public an insight into the problem. That story revealed that not a single submarine was available for deployment.

A fortnight later, then defence minister Stephen Smith ordered the Coles review into the Collins fleet. It was a success, with management, sustainment and availability of subs improved from 2012 to 2016.

Stewart’s original story and its consequences feature in a new book, Nobody Wins Unless Everybody Wins, by defence analyst Andrew Davies, to be published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute this week. In the book, Mr Smith, now Australia’s high commissioner in London, says the terrible state of submarine availability in 2012 made it politically impossible at the time to argue the case to build more new subs. Australian defence spending, despite signs that China was embarking on a major military build-up, was at a low ebb. By 2010, government-owned submarine builder ASC had run out of parts for the Collins subs, the book reveals. And the navy had a desperate shortfall of qualified submariners to crew the few vessels that were functional. The public was entitled to know, and to be told why, defence spending needed to rise.

Apportioning blame for the potentially catastrophic state of affairs would be futile. It arose from bipartisan failure. Former defence minister Kim Beazley ordered the Collins-class subs in 1987. They arrived between 1996 and 2004 under the Howard government and the problems came to a head from 2009 to 2012.

What matters, as Australia awaits the first of the US-built Virginia-class nuclear-powered subs under the AUKUS pact (initiated by Scott Morrison in our best defence decision for years), due in 2032, is the Albanese government’s $5bn plan to extend the ageing Collins subs for another decade. Doing so is perilously high-risk and not guaranteed to succeed but, as Stewart wrote last week, there is no plan B.

Lack of foresight, prevarication and incompetence in ordering have created a parlous situation. In the event of a real crisis, if the Collins subs were not up to the task, Australia would be in the invidious position of needing the US to station subs here.