Mark McGowan subs pitch ‘pointless, expensive’, says Jim McDowell

Former British Aerospace CEO moves to torpedo WA’s bid to secure Collins-class submarine maintenance work.

Collins Class Submarines HMAS Collins, HMAS Farncomb, HMAS Dechaineux and HMAS Sheean transition through Cockburn Sound, Western Australia. Picture: Supplied

A former chief executive of British Aerospace who now heads the South Australian public service has moved to torpedo Western Australia’s bid to secure the ­Collins-class submarine maintenance contract, declaring the proposal “expensive and pointless”.

In a defence of SA’s capacity to maintain the subs — and one that will irritate the WA government — defence expert Jim McDowell told The Australian the only possible result of moving the maintenance work would be increased costs through the unnecessary duplication of infrastructure and skills that already exist in SA.

His comments are the latest escalation in an increasingly hostile battle between SA and WA over 700 submarine maintenance jobs, with WA Premier Mark McGowan making a formal pitch to federal Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, last month to secure the contract.

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At the same time, SA Premier Steven Marshall has been heavily lobbying the Morrison government to maintain the status quo, with SA having lost a powerful advocate within cabinet with the resignation from politics of former defence minister and SA Liberal Christopher Pyne at this year’s election.

SA is now being aided by Mr McDowell, who was Australian chief executive of British Aerospace for 11 years and appointed last year by Mr Marshall as chief executive of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

He said there was “no industrial argument to move the work to WA”.

“I can guarantee that the only thing that will happen is that the quality will go down and the cost will go up,” Mr McDowell said.

“It has taken us a long time to get this right and we now have an operation here at the Osborn shipyards that is absolutely world class.

“We have the infrastructure and we have the workforce.

“Why would you want to send all this work 3000km away for it to be done from a standing start?

“It’s pointless. It would be less reliable and more expensive.”

South Australian Premier and Cabinet Department chief Jim McDowell. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Mr McDowell has more than four decades’ experience in the defence industry and was a member of both the 2015 First Principles Review of the Department of Defence and the Expert Advisory Panel for the Future Submarine Project.

He said if politics was taken out of the discussion, it made “no sense on industrial or capability grounds” to shift the work when SA had been working through the creation of the Naval Shipbuilding College at Port Adelaide to ensure it had the right skills to deliver the Naval Shipbuilding Plan.

The $89bn plan will ­deliver 12 Attack-class submarines ($50bn), nine Hunter-class frigates ($35bn) and 12 Arafura-class offshore pat­rol vessels ($3.6bn) over the next 25 years.

Ten of the OPVs are being built in WA with the rest of the projects slated for SA at the Osborn ­shipyards.

“SA has a strong history in naval shipbuilding, we have proven our ability to set strong strategies, engage with the supply chain, stand up the necessary infrastructure and workforce and collaborate nationally,” Mr McDowell said.

WA Defence Issues Minister Paul Papalia rejected Mr McDowell’s assessment, saying the McGowan government stood by the preliminary business case it put to the commonwealth last month “that comprehensively addressed and planned for the necessary workforce and infrastructure needs to accommodate Full-Cycle Docking in (the WA city of) Henderson by 2024.”