As always, one admires James Goldrick’s spirited defence of the importance of sea control to Australia’s defence strategy, and of the priority for major warships in our force structure. He suspects sceptics like me of …
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It all seemed so much easier in the old days. Equipment got old and it was replaced, like for like. Not always of course. Remember we used to have an aircraft carrier? In fact, at …
Both Kevin Andrews, the Defence Minister, and David Feeney, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence, were kind enough to respond to my criticisms of the Government’s naval shipbuilding program in a recent column, and especially its …
The recent announcement that the government would seek a continuous ship-building program in South Australia has attracted endorsement (from Warren King) and criticism (from Nic Stuart and Hugh White among others). But in this post …
Labor’s long-term advocacy for a shipbuilding plan for the Australian Navy (together with Customs, CSIRO and to support the Australian Antarctic Territory) is built on two foundations. The first is that a rational shipbuilding plan …
From an inauspicious and somewhat controversial start, the CEP has leapt into pride of place as the ‘process of choice’ for the Government when considering large maritime defence projects. Not only has it been used …
The government’s announcement of an ‘$89 billion shipbuilding program’ today is bold on two fronts. First, in the implicit assumption that much of the price premiums paid on past and current projects and the poor …
Tony Abbott today set the course for future government policy on naval shipbuilding in Australia. In his speech to ASPI’s Future Force Structure Options for Army Conference, the Prime Minister committed the government to a …
‘A 30-40% premium’, ‘3 AWDs for the cost of 9’, ‘500 more jobs in SA for future submarine sustainment’—all snapshots from recent Government media releases. The Government appears to be preparing the political ground for …
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last 25 years, it’s that government can’t successfully run naval dockyards in Australia. This is why the National Commission of Audit recommended the immediate privatisation of ASC. There …
Sea State The 2015 Shangri-La Dialogue ran over the weekend, and maritime security issues featured prominently in the wake of escalating tensions in the South China Sea. In his keynote address, US Secretary of Defense …
On the morning after the Federal Budget I posted a version of the above graph along with some basic numbers describing what’s going on. Today, my final analysis of the budget is launched. Not much …