Hunter-class frigates cost $5bn more each than similar ships purchased by Norway
Norway will pay $4bn-a-hull for new British warships upon which Australia’s $9bn-each Hunter-class frigates are based.
There are fresh calls for Australia to abandon the troubled Hunter-class frigate program after Norway sealed a $4bn-a-ship deal to buy new British frigates upon which Australia’s $9bn-a-hull Hunter-class frigates are based.
The $5bn differential exposes the massive mark-ups Australian taxpayers have been left to shoulder when buying military hardware.
Norway will buy five Type-26 anti-submarine frigates for about $20bn, with the first vessel to be delivered by British shipbuilder BAE Systems in 2030.
Unlike the Hunter-class ships, the Norwegian ships will be identical to Britain’s original Type-26 frigates and built in its UK shipyards to keep costs down.
The Turnbull government selected BAE Systems to design and build nine Hunter frigates based on the Type-26 in a botched 2018 tender process that failed to assess the bid’s value for money, according to an auditor-general’s report.
The cost of the Hunter program was initially estimated at $35bn for nine ships built in Adelaide, with the first to enter service in the late 2020s.
The program was scaled back to six ships after a 2024 review, with the initial three vessels to cost $27bn and the first to enter service around 2034.
“Norwegians are clearly getting better value than us,” Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge said. “They must be better negotiators, although it’s still an exorbitantly expensive vessel even at the price they’re paying.”
The Hunter has been heavily modified from the Type-26 design, with an Australian-designed CEA radar and Lockheed Martin Aegis Combat System to replace those on the original ship.
The changes sent the cost of the ships soaring, blew out the program’s schedule, and pushed the vessels’ weight, space and cooling margins to their limits.
The Hunters were originally supposed to replace the navy’s ageing Anzac-class frigates but their delayed arrival required the Albanese government to fast-track another frigate program, ordering 11 Mogami-class frigates from Japan, with the first to be delivered by the end of the decade.
Australian taxpayers spent about $5.7bn on the Hunter-class program to June 30 this year, despite initial construction beginning on the warships only 12 months earlier.
Despite the sunk costs, Mr Shoebridge said the government should cancel the British frigates and rely instead on its future fleet of Mogami frigates, which are also designed with stealth characteristics to enable them to hunt submarines.
Japan turned out an earlier version of the Mogami for $750m-a-ship while a US-made Constellation-class frigate cost about $1.8bn-a-vessel, Mr Shoebridge said.
National Security College expert associate Jennifer Parker, who served as an anti-submarine officer on a British Type-23 ship, was more positive about the Hunter. “I don’t hate it like everyone else,” Ms Parker said. “Hunter has had a lot of issues but I do think it gets a bad rap in terms of cost.”
She said the initial cost of the Hunters also included the cost of building a new shipyard in Adelaide and assembling a skilled workforce and supply chain.
Ms Parker said the Hunter would be a superior anti-submarine warfare platform to the Mogami as it was designed with more sound-deadening technology.
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