Blame game

It will be interesting to see what Australia learns from the Collins-class sub build.

This piece starts off with Hans and ends with a view that while it may have some valid points, comes from a party that didn't sign up for any sub builds during its leadership.

“It was never about getting the best submarines, at the best price, while maximising Australian content… It was a political fix cooked up at the height of Liberal leadership tensions to save Tony Abbott’s Prime Ministership,” he will say.

“While Tony Abbott is gone, his legacy of a deeply flawed process remains.”

Labor argues a Request for Tender process involving Germany, France, Japan and Sweden, whittled down to a shortlist of two “who would then provide full design definitions and fixed price contract bids” is a more robust process.

Nonetheless, “Labor has been clear that we will honour any contracts signed by the current Government”, he says.

The three groups – from Japan, France and Germany – bidding to build Australia’s next fleet of submarines are also making presentations to the conference.

Industry spokesman Chris Burns said the federal defence portfolio has suffered from “decision paralysis” with three ministers over the past two years.

“For years governments have failed to lead the nation towards a continuous shipbuilding strategy. As a result, the Australian shipbuilding industry is being forced to lay off workers in the absence of a clear direction, depleting our skilled workforce,” he said.

“Industry is in an impossible situation, unable to justify sustaining their workforce while we wait without any clear indication for the future.”

In other news, we have the DM warning that ship-builders and friends have to shape up.  Must have found some of the fired DM Johnston's speeches in a desk? No, not really because she does praise the Collins team for getting sub refurbishment numbers nice. But back to the shipbuilders.  there is some history to that. Also, nothing mentioned about the obsolete systems in the Air Warfare Destroyer. Finally, he may be a consultant now, but he was asleep at the switch at the start of the Air Warfare Destroyer project. And for a consultant, why does he have such a poor CV? Good money if you can get it; it's all who you know...and so on.

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