Richard Marles drags feet on navy updates despite need for urgency

Richard Marles has revealed the government will put off urgent decisions on the future of the navy’s surface fleet for another five months.

Defence Minister Richard Marles. Picture: Nic Douglass

Richard Marles has revealed the government will put off urgent decisions on the future of the navy’s surface fleet for another five months, delivering a response early next year to what was meant to be a “short, sharp” review.

The surface fleet review by retired US Vice-Admiral William Hilarides, which will determine whether the $45bn Hunter-class frigate program is axed or scaled back, will be handed to the Defence Minister by the end of this week.

But Mr Marles said the government would take time to consider the review before announcing its response.

“Our intention is to provide our response to that, meaning the decisions which come from that, in really … the first couple of months of next year,” Mr Marles told the Submarine Institute of Australia on Tuesday.

“We’ll try and get this out the door as quickly as we can, but that's essentially the time frame that we’re working on.”

He said the document would be classified, “but we will provide as much of the review as we can at that time”.

The delay will put off urgent decisions on the future of the troubled Hunter-class program and the undergunned Arafura-class offshore patrol boats until nearly 12 months after the government’s Defence Strategic Review.

The DSR, released on April 24, warned Australia’s strategic circumstances had “radically” worsened, requiring “urgent” action to accelerate the delivery of new capabilities.

Mr Marles has repeatedly warned in the months since that Australia faces unprecedented strategic challenges, declaring in May: “We have no time to waste.”

But opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the government was sticking to its “ponderous plan of inaction” that had blighted its response to the DSR.

“It’s not good enough. The clock is ticking, the risk is growing, and the Minister is working part-time,” Mr Hastie said.

“We ask our troops to be decisive, with a bias for action. They deserve the same focus from the Defence Minister, especially when he continues to hype the strategic challenge facing the nation.”

The classified version of DSR was highly critical of the Hunter-class program, warning the poorly armed and overpriced warships ill-suited to defending the nation against China, The Australian revealed in June.

A mock-up of the Hunter-class frigate by the ship’s designer, BAE Systems.

An early draft report called for the entire project to be axed, before its authors Stephen Smith and Angus Houston recommended an independent review to determine the project’s future.

The Arafura-class offshore patrol boat program is also under a cloud, due to the vessels’ lack of vertical launch missile cells.

When the DSR was released, Mr Marles said the “short, sharp” surface fleet review would be completed by the third quarter of this year but did say when the government would respond.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge said the government was putting off critical decisions on the future of the navy and the nation’s defence industry.

“The Albanese government has said the professionals are back in charge. Well, they need to make some hard, clear decisions to get the navy and domestic shipbuilding back on track,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“The worst thing in putting off its response to the Hilarides review, is the Hilarides review is a response to the government’s strategic review.

“And you have to wonder if the government’s response will be to commission another review.”

He said he feared the real reason behind the delay was the government “doesn’t want to make the decisions and maybe it doesn’t even know what to do”.

Meanwhile, Mr Marles warned there could not be any blowouts in the government’s nuclear submarine timeline or the 30-year AUKUS schedule will be put at risk.

“One of the things that is really clear to me is if we start losing that timeline early on, the whole thing blows out,” he told the Submarine Institute.

Mr Marles said the nation needed to “be getting our skates on”, and he felt the time pressure “acutely”.

He nominated skills development as the biggest challenge the nation faced in delivering on the AUKUS vision.

He said Defence also needed to speed up its procurement timelines and accept more risk, as recommended by the DSR.