Value for Money !

Howls of rage from the Union movement because Australian shipyards have been excluded from the tender process to build two new 20,000 tonne supply ships for the Royal Australian navy.   The time has arrived to replace both HMAS Success and HMAS Sirius and the front runners are both Korean shipyards.

Past performance is coming home to roost and our local ship builders have a lot to answer for.  They performed disgracefully when awarded the contracts for the $ 8.5 billion Air Warfare Destroyers.  These ships were grossly over budget and far below contract requirements - and as a consequence of bad workmanship and total indifference - their builders have not been invited to submit a price for the new supply ships.

For a long time the unions had a stranglehold on defence contracts.  It seems that the push to fill local jobs came a long way ahead of the need to get value for money - and this was money that was coming directly from the pockets of Australian taxpayers.    Russia was having exactly the same problem, and it shocked it's own local shipbuilders when it contracted France to build two huge helicopter docking platforms for it's navy.  On a world wide basis - the practice of waving the flag and accepting union rorts in defence work is fast being replaced with " Value for money " as the main criteria.

That is the only way we will get Australian shipyards to lift their game.  Without the comfy assumption that defence work will be placed locally the entire structure has to abandon work practices that belong in a past age.  Defence work has been the last bastion of resistance to multi skilling  and as a result we can not match the speed and skill with which overseas yards can commission a new ship.

Waiting in the wings is a new contract to build twenty new Pacific patrol boats to replace the ageing craft now guarding our northern waters.   The proverbial " Sword of Damocles " is hanging over the heads of our ship building industry.   If they are to get the chance to claim this contract, they need to convince the defence people that they have turned over a new leaf and are now running a " cleaner and meaner " operation - that can compete on a world basis.

If ship building is not prepared to reform itself, then it has no place as a future Australian industry !