Buried (or sunk) in last week’s Federal budget was another $6 billion to be spent extending the life of the Collins Class submarines. But as Rex Patrick explains, we’ll be getting less.

On Budget night, the price of the Collins life extension went from $5B to $11B. Ka-ching! Recall, the life extension is a program that is only necessary because the Defence don’t know how to buy subs in a timely and cost-effective manner.

“Enhanced sustainment.” Collins Class subs to fight on – the true Budget hit

by Rex Patrick

And so this week, Defence Minister Richard Marles, complaining about the Coalition – unfairly, because Labor’s fingerprints are all over the Navy’s submarine saga too – advised the taxpayer that for the same $11 billion, life extension would be scaled back. Although the announcement was short on details, MWMunderstands submarines will be life extended, with the diesel upgrades occurring on all six submarines only if it’s absolutely necessary.

Straight from a Mad as Hell script, Marles called the change “enhanced sustainment”.

Spin is the only thing that avoids talking about the total mismanagement of national security by both Labor, the Coalition and Defence.

When the future submarine program was first announced by Kevin Rudd in 2009, construction on the first of 12 new subs was to start in 2016 and be operational by 2025 – in time for the first of the Collins Class subs to retire in 2026.

Smooth, right? As the new submarines come online, the ageing Collins Class would be withdrawn.

Only two years into the future submarine program, under a Labor Government, things were ‘off the rails’.

In October 2011 Senate Estimates Liberal Senator David Johnston extracted from Defence the fact that they were doing a Submarine Life Extension Program study to extend the life of one of the Collins Class subs, because the first future sub was going to be late.

The plan was to extend the life of one or two Collins subs. 

Ka-ching! $1B in taxpayer money gone because Defence couldn’t get its act together.

Fast forward to 2016 (the year the first new sub was actually supposed to start construction), the Turnbull Liberal Government announced Australia was going to spend $50B dollars on 12 new Attack Class subs.

As only Defence does, they picked a sub design based on a French nuclear sub and asked the supplier, Naval Group, to convert the design to a diesel electric sub. It was akin to asking Tesla to take out the batteries in its latest electric vehicle and insert a petrol engine.

But Defence likes to do things the hard way – on your coin.

During the development of the Attack Class sub design, Defence realised the delivery wouldn’t come before the early 2030’s and so worked up the costing on extending the life of more Collins class subs. Ka-ching! The price of covering for Defence’s incompetence just went up to $4B.

The life extension program was to include a number of upgrades; new main motors (to turn the propellors), new diesel engines (to charge the sub’s batteries), new power distribution switchboards and new optronics masts (modern periscopes).

As if that extra $4B life extension cost wasn’t bad enough for the taxpayer, the price of the Attack Class subs went from $50B to $90B. Ka-ching!

In 2021 Scott Morrison cancelled the French program and announced that the Government was to conduct a study with the US and UK on buying nuclear powered subs.

$3.4B in taxpayers’ money had been spent not getting French subs, including $830 million in compensation to Naval Group. Ka-ching!

To be fair, Scott Morrison didn’t commit Australia to buying anything, only to exploring the possibility. Only after Defence delivered a study into AUKUS in early 2023 did the new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, commit to AUKUS. at a cost of $368B. Ka-ching.

As AUKUS progressed, and the arrival date of the first US Virginia Class submarine looked to be 2035, the Collins life extension program advanced. Except there was a catch.

On 5 June 2024 Richard Marles announced that the price of the Collins life extension had increased to $5B … Ka-ching … but that the optronics mast upgrade (for which some equipment had already been purchased) was no longer going ahead. More money for less capability!

As time has progressed, it’s become apparent (except to those in Government) that AUKUS is a sub deal where, in the end, you get no subs. The US can’t make enough subs to supply Australia, and the UK can’t seem to do anything right on subs.

17 years on from the 2009 announcement that the Navy would get new subs, there is still no sub delivery date in sight. We are, however, shipping billions each year to US and UK to improve their shipbuilding industrial bases.

More money for less capability is a common theme in Defence. When the Hunter Class future frigate program was announced by the Coalition, the cost to the taxpayer was going to be $30B for nine frigates. However, as the program advanced the cost went up to $45B. Ka-ching!

Then in 2024 the Labor Government scaled back the program to just six frigates for the same $45B dollars. Ka-ching.

But worry not – it’s only your hard-earned money and just your national security that’s at stake.

https://michaelwest.com.au/enhanced-sustainment-collins-class-subs-to-fight-on-the-true-budget-hit/

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