buglerbilly
31-03-10, 03:30 PM
The Future of Australian Naval Shipbuilding
(Source: Australian Strategic Policy Institute; issued March 30, 201)
The 2009 Defence White Paper outlined a significant expansion of Australia’s naval force. As well as doubling (at least) the size of the submarine fleet, the White Paper describes a future Royal Australian Navy (RAN) that will operate a larger number of larger vessels than is currently the case. Including the Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) and Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) programs already underway, the total tonnage to be delivered in the next twenty-five years is over 265,000 tonnes. The corresponding figure in the previous quarter century is less than 150,000 tonnes.
The detailed acquisition plan for this ambitious program is still under development. But governments of both stripes have shown a tendency to favour Australian shipyards when acquiring warships. So it is a fair bet that a significant fraction of the future tonnage will be built and supported here. And through-life support necessarily requires in-country capability.
To some extent, shipbuilding has been something of an outlier in Australian defence materiel acquisition. Major equipment for Army and Air Force is increasingly being sourced from overseas, consistent with the evolution of the national economy towards participation in a free global market. But external sourcing of warships continues to be by exception—such as the fabrication in Spain of the LHDs.
What the future holds for the Australian naval shipbuilding industry is not yet clear. There are various strategies that could be adopted to ensure that the industrial capability and capacity required to support the planned naval expansion is in place when required. Essentially the question boils down to the extent to which the government sees fit, or feels compelled, to intervene in the market.
At one extreme everything could be open to global competition (including the location of the building phases of various projects)—essentially trusting the market to deliver the expertise and capacity we will need. At the other extreme, we could move to a single national naval shipbuilder, perhaps along the lines of the situation in the United Kingdom, which is consolidating the remaining shipbuilders into a single entity operating with a strategic agreement with the Ministry of Defence.
For this forum, we invited a selection of writers from the federal and state government sectors, industry and elsewhere to provide their thoughts:
--The Defence Materiel Organisation
--The Defence Industry Unit of the Victorian Government
--Defence South Australia
--BAE Systems Australia
--Austal Ltd
--Henry Ergas
--ASPI’s own Mark Thomson.
There is a range of views on exhibit here, but some common themes emerge: the challenge of delivering the Defence White Paper’s planned expansion of the naval fleet, the need to manage the workflow for industry to avoid a ‘boom and bust’ pattern, and the need for Australian industry to be competitive in a global marketplace.
ASPI thanks our contributors for their efforts. We are sure that there will be much more written about naval shipbuilding as the White Paper plans start to take shape, but this should provide a good base for further discussion.
Click here to go to the report’s (22 pages in PDF format) home page on the ASPI website.
http://www.aspi.org.au/research/spf.aspx
-ends-
(Source: Australian Strategic Policy Institute; issued March 30, 201)
The 2009 Defence White Paper outlined a significant expansion of Australia’s naval force. As well as doubling (at least) the size of the submarine fleet, the White Paper describes a future Royal Australian Navy (RAN) that will operate a larger number of larger vessels than is currently the case. Including the Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) and Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) programs already underway, the total tonnage to be delivered in the next twenty-five years is over 265,000 tonnes. The corresponding figure in the previous quarter century is less than 150,000 tonnes.
The detailed acquisition plan for this ambitious program is still under development. But governments of both stripes have shown a tendency to favour Australian shipyards when acquiring warships. So it is a fair bet that a significant fraction of the future tonnage will be built and supported here. And through-life support necessarily requires in-country capability.
To some extent, shipbuilding has been something of an outlier in Australian defence materiel acquisition. Major equipment for Army and Air Force is increasingly being sourced from overseas, consistent with the evolution of the national economy towards participation in a free global market. But external sourcing of warships continues to be by exception—such as the fabrication in Spain of the LHDs.
What the future holds for the Australian naval shipbuilding industry is not yet clear. There are various strategies that could be adopted to ensure that the industrial capability and capacity required to support the planned naval expansion is in place when required. Essentially the question boils down to the extent to which the government sees fit, or feels compelled, to intervene in the market.
At one extreme everything could be open to global competition (including the location of the building phases of various projects)—essentially trusting the market to deliver the expertise and capacity we will need. At the other extreme, we could move to a single national naval shipbuilder, perhaps along the lines of the situation in the United Kingdom, which is consolidating the remaining shipbuilders into a single entity operating with a strategic agreement with the Ministry of Defence.
For this forum, we invited a selection of writers from the federal and state government sectors, industry and elsewhere to provide their thoughts:
--The Defence Materiel Organisation
--The Defence Industry Unit of the Victorian Government
--Defence South Australia
--BAE Systems Australia
--Austal Ltd
--Henry Ergas
--ASPI’s own Mark Thomson.
There is a range of views on exhibit here, but some common themes emerge: the challenge of delivering the Defence White Paper’s planned expansion of the naval fleet, the need to manage the workflow for industry to avoid a ‘boom and bust’ pattern, and the need for Australian industry to be competitive in a global marketplace.
ASPI thanks our contributors for their efforts. We are sure that there will be much more written about naval shipbuilding as the White Paper plans start to take shape, but this should provide a good base for further discussion.
Click here to go to the report’s (22 pages in PDF format) home page on the ASPI website.
http://www.aspi.org.au/research/spf.aspx
-ends-