[Igor Antunov]

Submarine fleet a major concern, Faulkner admits

By Online parliamentary correspondent Emma Rodgers

Posted 1 hour 35 minutes ago

Defence Minister John Faulkner has conceded that the state of the Navy's $6 billion Collins Class submarines is a "major concern".

A report in The Australian newpaper today says the six submarines face serious operational restrictions because of a multitude of mechanical problems.

Senator Faulkner has told a Senate Estimates committee that of the three submarines that are crewed, two are undergoing routine maintenance which "provides various levels of availability" and another is with the manufacturer with "urgent defects" that are being repaired.

The other three are due for major overhauls and refurbishment by their manufacturer ASC.

Senator Faulkner said the Government placed a "high priority" on submarine capability and operational availability.

"Significant improvement to submarine availability is vital for the submarine capability and particularly for Navy's ability to grow the submarine work force," he said.

"While the current situation regarding submarine availability is far from ideal, I would say and stress with the committee that the timely maintenance and repair of submarines obviously is vitally important."

He told the committee that he has directed the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) to review all aspects of submarine availability and changes are being implemented.

There will now be increased oversight by DMO and senior Navy personnel, he said.

The report in the Australian today also claimed that some tradesmen working on the submarines were "idle" for much of their time.

But Senator Faulkner says this is not the case.

"I'd like to assure the committee that crews are not sitting idly by. They are undertaking planned training activities to prepare for future employment it the submarine force," he said.

Since they were bought by the Howard government, the Collins class submarines have faced a series of problems and defects.

In the Defence white paper released earlier this year the Government committed to doubling its submarine fleet.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... 719765.htm

Honestly, $6 billion for 6 conventional subs we can't even keep operational/maintained? Pathetic. What form of money wasting trickery is this? We only have enough crew to run 3 of the subs at any one time, even when they are all at full operational readiness. We just don't have enough sailors. Why then did we build 6?

[redcarpet]

A total waste of money. No one is planning to attack Australia. Much less by sea

[Thunderhawk]

Didnt the USA buy their nuclear attack subs for ~2 billion a piece? Do they have conventional non-nuclear subs aswell?

If Australia is going to shell out 6 billion, why not buy new subs from the same builder that the USA navy has? Those subs atleast have well established infrastructure and maintenance procedures - and experts to fix them.

[Igor Antunov]

This was a prestige thing, look at us we can build big subs!

Waste of money indeed.

We have a decent navy, however, we should acquire some destroyers. 12 frigates is fine but we really need more powerful surface combatants as our frigates are lightly armed, relatively speaking.

I would double defence spending from $22 billion to $40 billion at least, and pour that money into a more formidable navy. 4% of our GDP on defence spending wouldn't hurt. As it stands we currently only spend 2%.

We also need a flagship for prestige purposes. A heavy cruiser or aircraft carrier wouldn't hurt.

$4.5 Billion for a fully equiped US nimitz class carrier and the $160 million/year operating cost sounds reasonable. We could have bought this with the $6 billion instead of these 6 pesky subs.

We'd be happy to take those old nimitz supercarriers off your hands, when the gerald ford class comes along, my American friends. Would you sell your prize weapons to such a loyal lapdog I wonder, or would you cripple them and sell them to us at double the price, as is the norm, you extortionist pigs?

[Thunderhawk]

We also need a flagship for prestige purposes. A heavy cruiser or aircraft carrier wouldn't hurt.

There is no point in having a flag ship if you cannot defend it during war. Considering the limited money Australia has, you might aswell not have a flag ship.

[redcarpet]

A coastguard would have been more worthwhile. It needs establishing

[Thunderhawk]

^ then you would be obligated to save the lives of all those illegals attempting to boat to your northern coast but fail in doing so.

[Zerogouki]

No one is planning to attack Australia. Much less by sea

As opposed to all those land routes?