Delays torpedo confidence in submarines program

The Future Submarine program is running at least 14 months behind schedule, sparking calls for the government to intervene.

Australian Defence Force submarine program manag­er Greg Sammut.

The nation’s troubled Future Submarine program is running at least 14 months behind schedule in completing a key milestone, intensifying pressure on the government to intervene to restore public confidence in the $90bn project.

France’s Naval Group is yet to complete the submarines’ “systems requirements review”, which was originally scheduled for completion in March 2019 but was later extended until October last year.

The Australian Defence Force’s submarine program manag­er, Greg Sammut, told a parliamentary committee on May 20 that Defence “has not exited” the review, which will determine how the submarine will meet ­Defence’s design requirements.

Auditor-General Grant Hehir later told the committee that Naval Group was scheduled to have “successfully exited” the milestone by October 31 last year.

Australian Strategic Policy Instit­ute executive director Peter Jennings said the drifting schedule and “the government’s conspicuous failure” to publicly argue the case for the subs was contributing to a crisis of confidence in the vital Defence project.

“Unless there is a concerted ­effort to retake the high ground of explaining what the project is about, then frankly the project could be at risk,” Mr Jennings said.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick said the difficulties with the submarine program were a case of “deja vu”, given the rolling problems that plagued the Collins-class program 20-odd years ago.

The first Collins-class boat was delivered to the navy 18 months behind schedule in 1996, but not accepted into service until 2004.

“All the warning signs are there but they are largely being ignored by both the Defence Department and the Defence Minister,” the senator told The Australian.

“Sadly, I have seen this all ­before on the Collins submarine program, which became fully operationa­l eight years late.

“Defence spent nearly $200m getting to the point of asking ­cabinet for approval to proceed with the Future Submarine prog­ram. It is implausible for them to claim that they did not have a good idea as to an accurate schedule and cost.”

Defence told The Australian it only began the systems requirements review on December 5 last year, five weeks behind schedule.

“During the review, it was ­assessed that satisfactory achie­ve­ment against exit criteria had been made to enable ongoing ­design work to proceed,” it said, adding that the lost time would be ­regained by the next major ­milestone in January next year. The schedule delay comes as the government prepares to ­announce a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the Collins-class subs to avoid a decade-long “capability gap” while the 12 Attack-class boats are completed.

Mr Jennings said there was no alternative to the French boats, and the government had to tackle the run of bad news head-on.

“It is now very hard to find anyone who is really prepared to say the project is going well,” he said. “We will see many changes of governments and ministers in ­future years. We have to give them reasons­ to stick with the sub­marine­ project. If all future governments­ see is a deeply unpopular ugly duckling, it will clearly become vulnerable.”

The Australian revealed on Monday that Defence had budg­eted “greater than $3.5bn”, at least $583m per submarine, to extend the Collins-class boats’ service.