The brains trust that awarded Australia’s $50 billion new submarine contract to the French must be having second thoughts about how we came to rely on one of our largest defence contracts ever to such an unreliable ally.
This follows former defence minister Christopher Pyne rounding-on the contractor, France’s Naval Group, for criticising Australian firms bidding for much of the work saying it wasn’t up to scratch.
Mr Pyne signed-off on the Future Submarines strategic partnering agreement with the company but is now angry that the group said that Australian companies could miss-out on much of the sub-contract work.
This followed Defence Minister Linda Reynolds revealing that she would also discuss the comments by Naval Group Australia chief executive John Davis about shortfalls in Australian industry capability with her French counterpart.
Senator Reynolds said she was “disappointed” by Mr Davis’s dismissive comments about Australian contractors and would discuss “our very clear requirements to lift Australian industry capability” at a security conference in Munich.
It followed the Naval Group chief executive’s warning on Thursday that the capability of Australian suppliers was presenting unforeseen challenges and the company was unsure whether the value of contracts to local firms would reach 50 per cent.
The Naval Group, then called DCNS, beat rival bids from Japan and Germany for the 12 new Royal Australian Navy submarines that will play a vital role in patrolling, deterrent, and surveillance work.
Critics though have questioned why Australia did not simply buy purpose-built submarines instead of the nearly 30-year time-frame for building the new submarines.The Attack-class submarine are scheduled to replace our current Collins-class submarines but will not enter service until the early 2030s with construction extending into the late 2040s to 2050, 30 years away!
