Rex Patrick calls for French subs to be dumped
Federal parliament’s only submariner says the time has come for the government to cancel its $90bn order or switch to a Plan B.
Federal parliament’s only submariner Rex Patrick says the time has come for the government to cancel its $90bn billion order for 12 French submarines and switch to an off-the-shelf boat or “Son of Collins” design.
The South Australian independent senator said Defence’s relationship with French company Naval Group was now “estranged”, and the company would never dedicate its design “A-team” to the Attack-class when it was also designing France’s next generation of ballistic missile subs.
As Scott Morrison prepared to discuss the Attack-class submarines with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Wednesday (AEST), Senator Patrick described the program as “unsalvageable”.
“We’re not at the stage of needing a Plan B, we’re at the stage where we should simply move to it,” he said.
“I don’t think anything you do at this stage will change the way this (Attack-class) program is going. It is time to make the proper decision to move to a Plan B.
“That could be a Son of Collins, or some off-the-shelf solution.”
Senator Patrick, who served 11 years as a navy submariner and worked in the defence industry for two decades, said Japanese or German “off-the-shelf” subs would be less expensive and arrive well before the proposed French boats, the first of which is not due to enter service until 2034.
He said an evolved Collins-class submarine, based on Saab Kockums’s design for the Dutch navy, would be riskier than an off-the-shelf design and face a similar timetable to the Attack.
That would still be preferable to the highly developmental French boats because Australian submarine company ASC would almost certainly lead the design and construction effort, using well-established Australian supply chains.
Defence Minister Peter Dutton told The Australian last week the government would conduct full rebuilds of all six Collins-class submarines, at an estimated cost of $10bn, to guard against a capability gap because of the late arrival of the Attack-class boats.
Senator Patrick suggested the government should ditch that plan as well, saying Australia could build 10 proven submarines in Adelaide over a decade for the same price. “For $10bn, you could get 10 off-the-shelf submarines.”
The government’s decision to go with the French proposal, a conventional version of its Shortfin Barracuda-class nuclear boat, was driven by the need for a larger submarine with enough range to reach the South China Sea.
The smaller German or Japanese submarines, ruled out by Defence in the Future Submarine tender process, would have a more limited range.
Senator Patrick said Australia didn’t need to operate its submarines off China, which will have more than 100 submarines by 2030, because “the Chinese are coming to us”.
The Attack-class boats will be the largest, most expensive diesel-electric submarines ever built.
They will be equipped with cutting-edge “pump jet” propulsion, and lead-acid batteries.
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