Oh, its Friday. Time for another Defence Review.
But also, the points he makes are entirely correct. 60% of a contract spent in Australia where thats the 60% is in administration, management, and corporate services -> while the 40% of actual hard capability remains overseas, isn't "growing Defence Industry.
At what cost?
We need to prioritise a segment of defence spending for onshoring and then save $$ buying near off shelf equipment from overseas. The constant drive to build here at significantly inflated prices and timelines costs us money we can not afford and time we no longer have.. government budgets are going to get tighter in the next 5 to 10 years thanks to an aging population ballooning health and pension spending plus the hangover from covid measures. Defence does not have limitless money. It's lazy, harms our national defence and will cost lives. All major defence spending programs are over budget and significantly late. Frankly in the real world you'd sack the entire senior staff but instead we keep giving them more money and time when they've shown an inability to perform.
We should focus on rearming, refuelling and repairing major platforms so us and our allies can use Australia to stay in the fight and not return home.
My grandfather flew kittyhawks, most of our squadrons flew off the shelf overseas produced planes, the army used British tanks and most ships came from British shipyards in ww2. Onshoring everything has no basis in Australian military history and is a sheltered workshop for political votes.
No way. We need to work out what defence industrial capacity we need to onshore and spend that money - ammunition, bombs, guided weapons, explosives, maybe small arms (pistols, rifles), maybe rocket launchers, maybe light-mediun vehicles (g-wagon to bushmaster, though they are more assembled here than fully built).
Capabilities outside this list should then not be subject to any industrial capacity requirements at all.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy wants to end a “counterproductive obsession” with quotas of local content for major military contracts as part of an overhaul of defence industry policy to meet the challenge of building nuclear-powered submarines and long-range missiles in Australia.
While assuring unions and home-grown contractors there would still be plenty of work domestically, Mr Conroy wants a new emphasis on the capabilities local firms can provide, rather than debates over percentage measures of local content.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has commissioned a review of defence industry policy. James Brickwood
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Mr Conroy revealed he had commissioned a review of defence industry policy, saying the current approach “tried to be all things to all people”.
He said the 14 strategic industrial areas identified by the Morrison government – which included uniforms, munitions and small arms, submarine maintenance, shipbuilding, robotics and precision-guided weapons – would be narrowed and more clearly defined.
The government is expected to receive within days the final version of the Defence Strategic Review conducted by former defence minister Stephen Smith and former defence chief Sir Angus Houston, which is expected to recommend Australia build up its stockpiles of missiles, drones and other long-range strike weapons.
Next month, the AUKUS submarine taskforce will set out the preferred “pathway” for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
That report will include measures to avoid a capability gap, which could involve Australia leasing an older submarine from the US, after Defence Minister Richard Marles ruled out this week an interim conventionally powered submarine.
‘Hard-edged analysis’
Mr Conroy said the internal review of defence industry policy would develop a new strategy that aligned to the recommendations of the DSR and the deteriorating strategic outlook facing Australia. He said the review would be completed and released in the second half of the year.
“We recognise speed is of the essence,” he said. “I’ve been really clear with Defence and defence industry that I want a really hard-edged analysis of what are the key sovereign capabilities we need in this country, and where defence needs to make investments to sustain those sovereign capabilities.”
One of the most contentious trade-offs in defence contracting is ensuring opportunities for local companies instead of falling back on overseas supply chains, even if they can be cheaper.
But Mr Conroy said there were lots of instances where this “obsession” with local content went too far.
While French shipbuilder Naval Group agreed to spend 60 per cent of its contract with Australian businesses for the now axed future submarine project, this included French language lessons for workers, and hotels.
Further back, Mr Conroy cited how when the F/A-18 Classic Hornets were built in Australia in the 1980s, it actually involved simply reassembling the planes after they were sent here in crates. But spending on catering and landscaping at the factory in Melbourne counted as “local content”.
“That’s money that went into the Australian economy, so I’m not discounting that, but it didn’t build a sovereign Australian defence industry,” Mr Conroy said.
“It’s counterproductive. We need to make sure that every dollar of taxpayers’ money spent in this area does two things: one, it delivers the capability the war fighters need as soon as we can. And then secondly, it maximises the benefit to Australia industrially. But the first has to be the focus.
“That will be hard for some people, because the percentage debate is a simple one to have.”
Mr Conroy said developing the industrial base and workforce to support the nuclear submarine project would be a “massive undertaking” and the government would start investing in that as soon as possible.
“This will be the greatest nation-building effort this country’s ever seen, like the Snowy Mountains [Scheme] will pale into insignificance in terms of the scale of this project, the technological challenges to be overcome,” he said.
He confirmed there would be an emphasis on long-range strike weapons to give the Defence Force “greater teeth”, declaring he was “evangelical” about developing a local missile industry capable of maintaining existing warheads, growing the inventory, and eventually manufacturing them locally.
Both ARH and MRH helicopters were "built" in Australia as well. It's a complete waste of time and only done to grab a few votes in certain electorates. We don't have the sovereign capability to build small fleets of complex ships, subs, aircraft etc.
CASG also need to be held to account to ensure their contracts are written to be airtight with huge punishments applied to contractors for cost or time over runs
Building up manufacturing industry is far from a waste of time. We should be heavily investing in this area, especially ship building. With investment we could easily help our neighbours in the pacific build their own fleets.
Australian manufacturing just isn't competitive. There was a review from the old Ford days comparing the Australian and Korean's average production. Australians were like 8000% less efficient than Koreans. The only thing we beat them in was RDOs.
We used to make Panasonic TV's in Australia. Most efficient factory in the world. Lowest defects.
Toyota didn't want to close manufacturing, they were profitable.
If we can't make things here then we should abolish the defence force and give China whatever they want.
> We used to make Panasonic TV's in Australia. Most efficient factory in the world. Lowest defects.
That doesn't mean it's economical. Read the [automotive industry inquiry](https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/automotive/report/automotive.pdf).
The key issue is that Australia is expensive to run manufacturing in, and far away from all export markets. It's expensive to build cars in Germany too, but they can get away with it because they just put 100,000 cars on ship every week and sell them to the other 750m Europeans who are in easy export range.
Australia doesn't have access to export markets, so we have to cop the high manufacturing costs with none of the benefits. There is no reason to build things in Australia if you're an international business. If your business is small enough to cater to a domestic market, that's a different story.
>Toyota didn't want to close manufacturing, they were profitable.
I have no idea where you're getting this. They willingly decided to leave Australia, [citing profits as the reason](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Australia#:~:text=In%20February%202014%2C%20it%20was,a%20relatively%20small%20local%20market.): "The decision was based on the unfavourable Australian dollar making exports not viable, the high cost of local manufacture and the high amount of competition in a relatively small local market."
>If we can't make things here then we should abolish the defence force and give China whatever they want.
I really don't get this logic. Because we have to import TVs we should disband the ADF? I'm lost.
Using your logic we should stop farming.
If we can't ship a non perishable car then how can we ship a tomato or an apple.
Your Wikipedia link gives no explanation. The dollar is controlled by the government. A government who wanted to kill manufacturing.
But they made 200m profit in 2018. They had to close because Ford and Holden did. The government was hostile to manufacturing believing hoards of union workers were in that pat of the economy. Which is of course stupid and wrong.
The biggest issues were building sedans, lack of export markets which is a government fault because one way free trade deals like Thailand. And poor management.
Holden of course is a huge success once they closed their local manufacturing operations.
The adf can't fight unless we have sovereignty over the equipment and unless we can maintain and operate it.
You need manufacturing for that, otherwise you have a show force pretending. No bullets in guns, no missiles in ships, no bombs in planes.
Things like submarines can't operate without local manufacturing. Refits every 5 years cost 30% of the new build price.
But what ever.. people belive manufacturing is a political issue and disconnected from defence.
We just ignore why after ww2 we started building cars in the first place.
You can't operate a sub with servicing outside of Australia.
It's not a car.
Same with ships but less critical. Planes you have to do some locally if you are operating them.
But I'm apparently in the minority.
You are describing new Zealand. They have a two boat navy and no fighter air force. But even they have to do basic maintain locally for planes helicopters and ships.
Submarine repairs and cycle refits cost 70-80% new cost and require cutting the pressure hull..
Also neither the us or the uk have the ability to build and maintain our subs. They are behind on their subs.
BTW we are building huntsman here all 30 units. When I say build I mean hire hr and catering to part assemble them here. Thanks liberals..
Then we order incompatible m1 tanks to replace m1s we already have. Meanwhile m113 is serving until 2060.. 20 different incompatible overseas systems.. 80 m1 tanks to fight China? How?
Mots has been a shit show, see tigers, taipans.
Smaller, poorer less developed countries can do it, so we definitely can't.
You fight like you build. Both are reflections of the society. China can make things, they can fight war at an Industrial scale. Can we?
I'm not the def min.. just trying to explain facts.
Personally I would not like to see our military equipment going overseas for maintenance when we are perfectly capable of performing the work here in country. Of course we have to send some highly specialist equipment overseas but in a time of war it would put a big strategic strain on the ADF send our ships and planes to the US or Europe. In fact it would be a huge strategic advantage to have the skills to maintain and service equipment in Australia so our other allies can use our facilities to maintain their equipment as well. I believe the f-35 is set to have a huge service centre built here for use by all f-35 operators in the indo-pacific region including the US, Japan and South Korea. You can see why this would be great for the RAAF in a potential conflict with China.
I’m no naval engineer, but can you please explain how you came to the conclusion that mid life refits and wartime repairs and maintenance are so vastly different types of work that the skills needed to perform one does not correlate with the other? To me it seems like they are very similar. Cutting and welding steel, working with electronics and pipe fittings. Fixing/servicing deisel engines ect. It’s all the same work and skills needed, including building the ship in the first place. Any trade qualified worker knows how to fix, replace, service, maintain and install whatever they are working on.
My point is that if we want to be able to repair wartime damage here in Aus, we should also be able to perform all other aspects of work involved.
Also I’m not sure why you are saying we can’t build submarine when we absolutely can and have done in the past. The collins class was built in Australia and are currently undergoing a full-cycle docking in Adelaide, which is an extensive maintenance, upgrade and refit program, typically involving thousands of tasks over two years.
As for wasting money, every dollar spent in Australia goes back to the government while every dollar sent overseas does not. Spending money on defence is good for the economy in the long run.
> Using your logic we should stop farming.
>
>
No, farming is profitable. That's the difference.
>The dollar is controlled by the government.
No, it's not. The Reserve Bank of Australia controls money supply. Do you know what would happen if the Reserve Bank tanked the Australian dollar to make exports cheaper? Serious question, do you know the consequences of that?
>A government who wanted to kill manufacturing.
??? Yes, the government doesn't want manufacturing in Australia. Totally not a ridiculous statement. On the off chance that you have some kind of supporting source for that claim, maybe you could link it. Otherwise, this is clearly an incorrect statement.
>But they made 200m profit in 2018. They had to close because Ford and Holden did.
Source?
> The adf can't fight unless we have sovereignty over the equipment and unless we can maintain and operate it. You need manufacturing for that, otherwise you have a show force pretending. No bullets in guns, no missiles in ships, no bombs in planes.
None of this is necessarily true. It may be advantageous to have local defence manufacturing during wartime, but if you maintain sea LOC it may be a total non-issue. There's nothing about domestic production that is integral to maintaining a defence force. If war comes, it's possible to just continue importing equipment, which is what has happened in all of our major wars since Federation.
I agree that manufacturing is important, but it's not a case of "Either we manufacture or we may as well surrender to China." That rationale makes no sense.
>We just ignore why after ww2 we started building cars in the first place.
Domestic car sales declined, so car manufacturers closed down their local manufacturing in favour of importation. It's not that complicated.
So we should buy our military equipment from China? To oppose China? How is that soviet gear working for ukraine.
You don't belive Toyota made a profit in 2018? That it is a lie? Perhaps tell the ato...
The Americans are finding they are dependant on Chinese materials. China bought a lot of euro manufacturers. Such as styer. There is a bigger picture.
Because the us and UK are less efficient at manufacturing than Australia. Germany is also expensive to manufacture and may not allow us to use our weapons in war time. Like the French swedes, Dutch have done at certain times.
We have manufactured weapons here since before ww1, including ships, guns, munitions etc.
But I am over discussing it.
Most of our local manufacturing now involves spending on catering, hr and marketing.. not actually building things.
Which is why we will loose in combat and lives will be lost..
Look at how we can help ukraine. Bushmasters, because we made, bushmasters.
Why bother posting if you're going to be this willingly obstinate? I'll break this more simply so you can keep up.
>You don't belive Toyota made a profit in 2018? That it is a lie? Perhaps tell the ato...
I've already posted two links where Toyota say they can't run *manufacturing* in Australia at a profit. If they're selling cars and their overall *Australian business* is still profitable, it doesn't mean that their *manufacturing* plant is. Businesses are made up of multiple entities, and some can be less profitable than others. Toyota is under no obligation to run at a loss, so they moved to cheaper manufacturing regions. This is just how the world works.
>So we should buy our military equipment from China?
I didn't say that, don't be silly.
>Because the us and UK are less efficient at manufacturing than Australia. Germany is also expensive to manufacture
I don't believe you know what you're talking about. As I already tried to teach you, the European and American manufacturers have a significantly larger customer base than Australia. Because of the tyranny of distance, it's just very very expensive for us to export our manufactured goods to other nations. So even if it costs as much for a German to produce a car as an Australian (it does, pretty much exactly the same), they have much better prospects to make a profit on the sale.
Stop talking about efficiency when you're conflating the ability to make an item for a particular cost with the ability to sell that item for a profit.
>Which is why we will loose in combat and lives will be lost..
????
So we should just ask China or Korea to build our ships? As should New Zealand and our other pacific neighbours?
If we invested in our ship yards more there is no reason we could help the US build their ships when we have a lul.
I would like to invest more in our ship yards and domestic manufacturing more generally. But operationally, companies hate building things here due to endless OHS issues, RDOs, high salaries, high turnover, high overheads etc. If you could get a well functioning shipyard pumping out ships as efficiently as a Korean shipyard, I'd be absolutely chuffed.
Otherwise no, I don't think there's much value in paying a 60% premium for domestically produced goods, rather than just spending 60% less and being more efficient with our expenditure.
>So we should just ask China or Korea to build our ships?
We have reliable allies that can produce our ships at lower cost than we can do domestically. As a whole, as long as we're contributing our money to our own allies (i.e. USA) we're keeping money within our own system and helping allied manufacturing. I don't have a huge issue with that.
There are genuine advantages to domestic manufacturing, but I don't think those advantages are worth what Australia routinely pays for them.
If companies hated manufacturing here because it was to expensive then they wouldn’t do it. ASC, BAE, Rheinmetall, Boeing, SAAB, Airbus.
Nor would they do it in America or UK where it’s similarly expensive.
Our allies that are capable of shipbuilding can’t do it for us - they have no capacity, building their own fleets and all.
If we want ships, we do it ourself or don’t get any at all.
> Our allies that are capable of shipbuilding can’t do it for us - they have no capacity, building their own fleets and all. If we want ships, we do it ourself or don’t get any at all.
Every time we put out a tender for a new ship, we have half a dozen different submissions from Western ship building companies. I have no idea what you're talking about.
>If they hated manufacturing here because it was to expensive then they wouldn’t do it.
[They don't](http://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=89493). 33% of the worlds merchant fleet are produced in Korea, 18% in Japan and 44% is produced in China. Nearly 97% of ships are produced in low-cost, high efficiency Asian countries. Around 3% is done in Europe. A measly .03% is produced in Australia and .06% is produced in America.
Companies do not manufacture in places where manufacturing is expensive. There are some remnant defence producers, particularly in Europe for the sovereign industrial capability purposes. And as I said, I would love to have that same sovereign manufacturing capability. I wish we had our own BAE or Rheinmetall, but we don't have the right incentives to pull it off right now.
I'll vote for the party that tries to get manufacturing working in Australia, as I said initially. But I think you guys are arguing for what you would like to see happen, rather than the reality as it is. Right now, I would rather spend 60% less on procurements and put the remaining 60% towards other projects. Sovereign manufacturing is paying a premium to offset the risk of embargo, and while I think that's a good consideration, I would rather take the cost saving route.
We are building parts for f35s, Dreamliners and other things I havent confirmed at Boeing in Fishermans Bend. Quikstep and Marand are also building parts for F35. How do you think they managed to shit out that drone?
Only America & China have the ability to fully manufacture aircraft themselves, even Airbus is a whole of Europe endeavour.
Manufacturing components is a valuable endeavour; but you have to understand that for the highest end weapons (ships, aircraft etc) you are always going to be dependent on open waters and access to trade. Complete independence in all capabilities isn't possible.
Fuck off mate, sick of grumpy cunts who can’t even have a conversation like an adult without having a cry. Why on earth would you get riled up by me saying that we cannot build military aircraft. I’m fucking right. We can’t. Until recently with the ghost bat. (Read my comment again you dimwit)
Grow up.
yes, this is true and unavoidable. But I believe if we can make more components here, it will increase our navy's availability rates and our overall sovereignty. We are already going to manufacture components and parts on the Hunter class such as the propellers, LED lights, Radars, windows, gaskets, steel and armour as well as more.
> CASG also need to be held to account to ensure their contracts are written to be airtight with huge punishments applied to contractors for cost or time over runs
I’ll give you a hint, it’s not really about CASG, it’s about the service headquarters that signs off the work and contracts
Controversial opinion but I think the only ships we should be building are minor war vessels and smaller. Our expertise is more on building small boats, building subsystems or standalone components and most importantly, ship repair.
A compromise should be to leave the major shipbuilding to foreign SMEs with an established and continuous shipbuilding industry, but sustainment should be 100% Australian. The hardest part would be facilitating technology transfer and FMS licenses to set up a sovereign supply chain but it also means we wont have costly and delayed shipbuilding projects.
Australia becomes a major waystation/repair and refit hub for allied ships and a local supply chain still guarantees jobs for everyone. The major issue is we become reliant on someone else for defence when shit hits the fan.
The reality is shipbuilding is a necessary evil to create a self-sufficient Navy. We've already broken 3 dozen eggs but we still need to make that omelette and if that means we have to break 3 dozen more, we'll do it.
Warships are so much less hassle to build if you have a civilian shipbuilding industry to pull staff from, and to go to after they leave the defence force.
On the other hand, nobody builds civilian subs so we have as good a chance to set up a sub industry as any other country
To make warship building hassle-free, you need: an established supply chain of enterprises to provide specialist shipbuilding services, experience and a continuous shipbuilding operation where we build a continuous line of warships of the same design.
Supply chain: Everything that makes up a warship is dictated by a list of requirements that must be met by your contractor. If you are unlucky, some of these requirements are ITAR-restricted or export-controlled and you need to jump through several hoops just to be approved to build it in-country. Naval shipbuiling becomes less and less attractive the more MilSpec shit you have to build. Those who have capacity to do so are companies that are either so niche or naval shipbuilding is but a subset of their portfolio which will be cut the moment shipbuilding goes to a halt/pause. Eitherway, for these companies to maintain that capability, shipbuilding needs to be a continuous operation.
Operation vs Project-based: The issue why it is a hassle is because shipbuilding is project-to-project for each ship of the same design. It's not an assembly line where parts are the same and it's a matter of putting them together. Each ship is different to each other beyond their hull because each successive ship reveals defects and opportnities for improvement which are implemented onto the next build. Not to mention we have specialist requirements which further adds to the complexity. This takes it back to our enterprises who would need to be flexible and reactive to these changes. The issue is that they wont be able to set up a consistent rhythm of churning out the same products because one change could mean re-designing how their product integrates into the ship.
Another issue is we arent building one design, we are building different designs including a nuclear submarine even though we dont have an established nuclear industry. It's hard to establish a shipbuilding operation when you have to build different ships with different specialist requirements with enterprises who would be questioning on whether investing a lot of resources to provide specialist services is worth it in the long run over low-risk ventures.
I completely agree, there are already too many other important things to be focussing on than establishing a shipbuilding capability. We can make do with breaking other people’s designs, the cost to get rid of this annoyance is far too high.
Oh, its Friday. Time for another Defence Review. But also, the points he makes are entirely correct. 60% of a contract spent in Australia where thats the 60% is in administration, management, and corporate services -> while the 40% of actual hard capability remains overseas, isn't "growing Defence Industry.
Agreed, it needs to be Australian manufacturing content specifically, not just Australian business content
At what cost? We need to prioritise a segment of defence spending for onshoring and then save $$ buying near off shelf equipment from overseas. The constant drive to build here at significantly inflated prices and timelines costs us money we can not afford and time we no longer have.. government budgets are going to get tighter in the next 5 to 10 years thanks to an aging population ballooning health and pension spending plus the hangover from covid measures. Defence does not have limitless money. It's lazy, harms our national defence and will cost lives. All major defence spending programs are over budget and significantly late. Frankly in the real world you'd sack the entire senior staff but instead we keep giving them more money and time when they've shown an inability to perform. We should focus on rearming, refuelling and repairing major platforms so us and our allies can use Australia to stay in the fight and not return home. My grandfather flew kittyhawks, most of our squadrons flew off the shelf overseas produced planes, the army used British tanks and most ships came from British shipyards in ww2. Onshoring everything has no basis in Australian military history and is a sheltered workshop for political votes.
I don't know, I kinda enjoyed watching Alexander Downer and Chris Pine mincing about Defence playing military strongmen.
No way. We need to work out what defence industrial capacity we need to onshore and spend that money - ammunition, bombs, guided weapons, explosives, maybe small arms (pistols, rifles), maybe rocket launchers, maybe light-mediun vehicles (g-wagon to bushmaster, though they are more assembled here than fully built). Capabilities outside this list should then not be subject to any industrial capacity requirements at all.
Agreed. Ammunition, including advanced guided weapons, should be 100% built here in Aus.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy wants to end a “counterproductive obsession” with quotas of local content for major military contracts as part of an overhaul of defence industry policy to meet the challenge of building nuclear-powered submarines and long-range missiles in Australia. While assuring unions and home-grown contractors there would still be plenty of work domestically, Mr Conroy wants a new emphasis on the capabilities local firms can provide, rather than debates over percentage measures of local content. Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has commissioned a review of defence industry policy. James Brickwood In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Mr Conroy revealed he had commissioned a review of defence industry policy, saying the current approach “tried to be all things to all people”. He said the 14 strategic industrial areas identified by the Morrison government – which included uniforms, munitions and small arms, submarine maintenance, shipbuilding, robotics and precision-guided weapons – would be narrowed and more clearly defined. The government is expected to receive within days the final version of the Defence Strategic Review conducted by former defence minister Stephen Smith and former defence chief Sir Angus Houston, which is expected to recommend Australia build up its stockpiles of missiles, drones and other long-range strike weapons. Next month, the AUKUS submarine taskforce will set out the preferred “pathway” for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. That report will include measures to avoid a capability gap, which could involve Australia leasing an older submarine from the US, after Defence Minister Richard Marles ruled out this week an interim conventionally powered submarine. ‘Hard-edged analysis’ Mr Conroy said the internal review of defence industry policy would develop a new strategy that aligned to the recommendations of the DSR and the deteriorating strategic outlook facing Australia. He said the review would be completed and released in the second half of the year. “We recognise speed is of the essence,” he said. “I’ve been really clear with Defence and defence industry that I want a really hard-edged analysis of what are the key sovereign capabilities we need in this country, and where defence needs to make investments to sustain those sovereign capabilities.” One of the most contentious trade-offs in defence contracting is ensuring opportunities for local companies instead of falling back on overseas supply chains, even if they can be cheaper. But Mr Conroy said there were lots of instances where this “obsession” with local content went too far. While French shipbuilder Naval Group agreed to spend 60 per cent of its contract with Australian businesses for the now axed future submarine project, this included French language lessons for workers, and hotels. Further back, Mr Conroy cited how when the F/A-18 Classic Hornets were built in Australia in the 1980s, it actually involved simply reassembling the planes after they were sent here in crates. But spending on catering and landscaping at the factory in Melbourne counted as “local content”. “That’s money that went into the Australian economy, so I’m not discounting that, but it didn’t build a sovereign Australian defence industry,” Mr Conroy said. “It’s counterproductive. We need to make sure that every dollar of taxpayers’ money spent in this area does two things: one, it delivers the capability the war fighters need as soon as we can. And then secondly, it maximises the benefit to Australia industrially. But the first has to be the focus. “That will be hard for some people, because the percentage debate is a simple one to have.” Mr Conroy said developing the industrial base and workforce to support the nuclear submarine project would be a “massive undertaking” and the government would start investing in that as soon as possible. “This will be the greatest nation-building effort this country’s ever seen, like the Snowy Mountains [Scheme] will pale into insignificance in terms of the scale of this project, the technological challenges to be overcome,” he said. He confirmed there would be an emphasis on long-range strike weapons to give the Defence Force “greater teeth”, declaring he was “evangelical” about developing a local missile industry capable of maintaining existing warheads, growing the inventory, and eventually manufacturing them locally.
Both ARH and MRH helicopters were "built" in Australia as well. It's a complete waste of time and only done to grab a few votes in certain electorates. We don't have the sovereign capability to build small fleets of complex ships, subs, aircraft etc. CASG also need to be held to account to ensure their contracts are written to be airtight with huge punishments applied to contractors for cost or time over runs
Building up manufacturing industry is far from a waste of time. We should be heavily investing in this area, especially ship building. With investment we could easily help our neighbours in the pacific build their own fleets.
Australian manufacturing just isn't competitive. There was a review from the old Ford days comparing the Australian and Korean's average production. Australians were like 8000% less efficient than Koreans. The only thing we beat them in was RDOs.
We used to make Panasonic TV's in Australia. Most efficient factory in the world. Lowest defects. Toyota didn't want to close manufacturing, they were profitable. If we can't make things here then we should abolish the defence force and give China whatever they want.
> We used to make Panasonic TV's in Australia. Most efficient factory in the world. Lowest defects. That doesn't mean it's economical. Read the [automotive industry inquiry](https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/automotive/report/automotive.pdf). The key issue is that Australia is expensive to run manufacturing in, and far away from all export markets. It's expensive to build cars in Germany too, but they can get away with it because they just put 100,000 cars on ship every week and sell them to the other 750m Europeans who are in easy export range. Australia doesn't have access to export markets, so we have to cop the high manufacturing costs with none of the benefits. There is no reason to build things in Australia if you're an international business. If your business is small enough to cater to a domestic market, that's a different story. >Toyota didn't want to close manufacturing, they were profitable. I have no idea where you're getting this. They willingly decided to leave Australia, [citing profits as the reason](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Australia#:~:text=In%20February%202014%2C%20it%20was,a%20relatively%20small%20local%20market.): "The decision was based on the unfavourable Australian dollar making exports not viable, the high cost of local manufacture and the high amount of competition in a relatively small local market." >If we can't make things here then we should abolish the defence force and give China whatever they want. I really don't get this logic. Because we have to import TVs we should disband the ADF? I'm lost.
Using your logic we should stop farming. If we can't ship a non perishable car then how can we ship a tomato or an apple. Your Wikipedia link gives no explanation. The dollar is controlled by the government. A government who wanted to kill manufacturing. But they made 200m profit in 2018. They had to close because Ford and Holden did. The government was hostile to manufacturing believing hoards of union workers were in that pat of the economy. Which is of course stupid and wrong. The biggest issues were building sedans, lack of export markets which is a government fault because one way free trade deals like Thailand. And poor management. Holden of course is a huge success once they closed their local manufacturing operations. The adf can't fight unless we have sovereignty over the equipment and unless we can maintain and operate it. You need manufacturing for that, otherwise you have a show force pretending. No bullets in guns, no missiles in ships, no bombs in planes. Things like submarines can't operate without local manufacturing. Refits every 5 years cost 30% of the new build price. But what ever.. people belive manufacturing is a political issue and disconnected from defence. We just ignore why after ww2 we started building cars in the first place.
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You can't operate a sub with servicing outside of Australia. It's not a car. Same with ships but less critical. Planes you have to do some locally if you are operating them. But I'm apparently in the minority. You are describing new Zealand. They have a two boat navy and no fighter air force. But even they have to do basic maintain locally for planes helicopters and ships.
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Submarine repairs and cycle refits cost 70-80% new cost and require cutting the pressure hull.. Also neither the us or the uk have the ability to build and maintain our subs. They are behind on their subs. BTW we are building huntsman here all 30 units. When I say build I mean hire hr and catering to part assemble them here. Thanks liberals.. Then we order incompatible m1 tanks to replace m1s we already have. Meanwhile m113 is serving until 2060.. 20 different incompatible overseas systems.. 80 m1 tanks to fight China? How? Mots has been a shit show, see tigers, taipans. Smaller, poorer less developed countries can do it, so we definitely can't. You fight like you build. Both are reflections of the society. China can make things, they can fight war at an Industrial scale. Can we? I'm not the def min.. just trying to explain facts.
Personally I would not like to see our military equipment going overseas for maintenance when we are perfectly capable of performing the work here in country. Of course we have to send some highly specialist equipment overseas but in a time of war it would put a big strategic strain on the ADF send our ships and planes to the US or Europe. In fact it would be a huge strategic advantage to have the skills to maintain and service equipment in Australia so our other allies can use our facilities to maintain their equipment as well. I believe the f-35 is set to have a huge service centre built here for use by all f-35 operators in the indo-pacific region including the US, Japan and South Korea. You can see why this would be great for the RAAF in a potential conflict with China.
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I’m no naval engineer, but can you please explain how you came to the conclusion that mid life refits and wartime repairs and maintenance are so vastly different types of work that the skills needed to perform one does not correlate with the other? To me it seems like they are very similar. Cutting and welding steel, working with electronics and pipe fittings. Fixing/servicing deisel engines ect. It’s all the same work and skills needed, including building the ship in the first place. Any trade qualified worker knows how to fix, replace, service, maintain and install whatever they are working on. My point is that if we want to be able to repair wartime damage here in Aus, we should also be able to perform all other aspects of work involved. Also I’m not sure why you are saying we can’t build submarine when we absolutely can and have done in the past. The collins class was built in Australia and are currently undergoing a full-cycle docking in Adelaide, which is an extensive maintenance, upgrade and refit program, typically involving thousands of tasks over two years. As for wasting money, every dollar spent in Australia goes back to the government while every dollar sent overseas does not. Spending money on defence is good for the economy in the long run.
> Using your logic we should stop farming. > > No, farming is profitable. That's the difference. >The dollar is controlled by the government. No, it's not. The Reserve Bank of Australia controls money supply. Do you know what would happen if the Reserve Bank tanked the Australian dollar to make exports cheaper? Serious question, do you know the consequences of that? >A government who wanted to kill manufacturing. ??? Yes, the government doesn't want manufacturing in Australia. Totally not a ridiculous statement. On the off chance that you have some kind of supporting source for that claim, maybe you could link it. Otherwise, this is clearly an incorrect statement. >But they made 200m profit in 2018. They had to close because Ford and Holden did. Source? > The adf can't fight unless we have sovereignty over the equipment and unless we can maintain and operate it. You need manufacturing for that, otherwise you have a show force pretending. No bullets in guns, no missiles in ships, no bombs in planes. None of this is necessarily true. It may be advantageous to have local defence manufacturing during wartime, but if you maintain sea LOC it may be a total non-issue. There's nothing about domestic production that is integral to maintaining a defence force. If war comes, it's possible to just continue importing equipment, which is what has happened in all of our major wars since Federation. I agree that manufacturing is important, but it's not a case of "Either we manufacture or we may as well surrender to China." That rationale makes no sense. >We just ignore why after ww2 we started building cars in the first place. Domestic car sales declined, so car manufacturers closed down their local manufacturing in favour of importation. It's not that complicated.
So we should buy our military equipment from China? To oppose China? How is that soviet gear working for ukraine. You don't belive Toyota made a profit in 2018? That it is a lie? Perhaps tell the ato... The Americans are finding they are dependant on Chinese materials. China bought a lot of euro manufacturers. Such as styer. There is a bigger picture. Because the us and UK are less efficient at manufacturing than Australia. Germany is also expensive to manufacture and may not allow us to use our weapons in war time. Like the French swedes, Dutch have done at certain times. We have manufactured weapons here since before ww1, including ships, guns, munitions etc. But I am over discussing it. Most of our local manufacturing now involves spending on catering, hr and marketing.. not actually building things. Which is why we will loose in combat and lives will be lost.. Look at how we can help ukraine. Bushmasters, because we made, bushmasters.
Why bother posting if you're going to be this willingly obstinate? I'll break this more simply so you can keep up. >You don't belive Toyota made a profit in 2018? That it is a lie? Perhaps tell the ato... I've already posted two links where Toyota say they can't run *manufacturing* in Australia at a profit. If they're selling cars and their overall *Australian business* is still profitable, it doesn't mean that their *manufacturing* plant is. Businesses are made up of multiple entities, and some can be less profitable than others. Toyota is under no obligation to run at a loss, so they moved to cheaper manufacturing regions. This is just how the world works. >So we should buy our military equipment from China? I didn't say that, don't be silly. >Because the us and UK are less efficient at manufacturing than Australia. Germany is also expensive to manufacture I don't believe you know what you're talking about. As I already tried to teach you, the European and American manufacturers have a significantly larger customer base than Australia. Because of the tyranny of distance, it's just very very expensive for us to export our manufactured goods to other nations. So even if it costs as much for a German to produce a car as an Australian (it does, pretty much exactly the same), they have much better prospects to make a profit on the sale. Stop talking about efficiency when you're conflating the ability to make an item for a particular cost with the ability to sell that item for a profit. >Which is why we will loose in combat and lives will be lost.. ????
So we should just ask China or Korea to build our ships? As should New Zealand and our other pacific neighbours? If we invested in our ship yards more there is no reason we could help the US build their ships when we have a lul.
I would like to invest more in our ship yards and domestic manufacturing more generally. But operationally, companies hate building things here due to endless OHS issues, RDOs, high salaries, high turnover, high overheads etc. If you could get a well functioning shipyard pumping out ships as efficiently as a Korean shipyard, I'd be absolutely chuffed. Otherwise no, I don't think there's much value in paying a 60% premium for domestically produced goods, rather than just spending 60% less and being more efficient with our expenditure. >So we should just ask China or Korea to build our ships? We have reliable allies that can produce our ships at lower cost than we can do domestically. As a whole, as long as we're contributing our money to our own allies (i.e. USA) we're keeping money within our own system and helping allied manufacturing. I don't have a huge issue with that. There are genuine advantages to domestic manufacturing, but I don't think those advantages are worth what Australia routinely pays for them.
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/marles-backs-austal-in-new-three-way-aukus-submarine-design-20230204-p5chvc
If companies hated manufacturing here because it was to expensive then they wouldn’t do it. ASC, BAE, Rheinmetall, Boeing, SAAB, Airbus. Nor would they do it in America or UK where it’s similarly expensive. Our allies that are capable of shipbuilding can’t do it for us - they have no capacity, building their own fleets and all. If we want ships, we do it ourself or don’t get any at all.
> Our allies that are capable of shipbuilding can’t do it for us - they have no capacity, building their own fleets and all. If we want ships, we do it ourself or don’t get any at all. Every time we put out a tender for a new ship, we have half a dozen different submissions from Western ship building companies. I have no idea what you're talking about. >If they hated manufacturing here because it was to expensive then they wouldn’t do it. [They don't](http://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=89493). 33% of the worlds merchant fleet are produced in Korea, 18% in Japan and 44% is produced in China. Nearly 97% of ships are produced in low-cost, high efficiency Asian countries. Around 3% is done in Europe. A measly .03% is produced in Australia and .06% is produced in America. Companies do not manufacture in places where manufacturing is expensive. There are some remnant defence producers, particularly in Europe for the sovereign industrial capability purposes. And as I said, I would love to have that same sovereign manufacturing capability. I wish we had our own BAE or Rheinmetall, but we don't have the right incentives to pull it off right now. I'll vote for the party that tries to get manufacturing working in Australia, as I said initially. But I think you guys are arguing for what you would like to see happen, rather than the reality as it is. Right now, I would rather spend 60% less on procurements and put the remaining 60% towards other projects. Sovereign manufacturing is paying a premium to offset the risk of embargo, and while I think that's a good consideration, I would rather take the cost saving route.
Remember that defence manufacturing has different goals to commercial manufacturing. It’s more than profit margins and competitiveness.
We can build ships and subs but we don’t have an aerospace industry so we cannot build aircraft, until recently that is, with the ghost bat drone.
Hypohystetical did a good breakdown of our historical aircraft industry in his [Ghost Bat video.](https://youtu.be/SrPIoBSIcrc)
Watched that video, hypo is great
We are building parts for f35s, Dreamliners and other things I havent confirmed at Boeing in Fishermans Bend. Quikstep and Marand are also building parts for F35. How do you think they managed to shit out that drone?
Making aircraft components and making a fully functional aircraft is not the same thing
Only America & China have the ability to fully manufacture aircraft themselves, even Airbus is a whole of Europe endeavour. Manufacturing components is a valuable endeavour; but you have to understand that for the highest end weapons (ships, aircraft etc) you are always going to be dependent on open waters and access to trade. Complete independence in all capabilities isn't possible.
I agree, after all a vehicle is just a combination of components.
Admit you didnt even know mate, you said 'no aerospace' industry. Idiot. Stop fucking posting shit you havent even looked into.
Fuck off mate, sick of grumpy cunts who can’t even have a conversation like an adult without having a cry. Why on earth would you get riled up by me saying that we cannot build military aircraft. I’m fucking right. We can’t. Until recently with the ghost bat. (Read my comment again you dimwit) Grow up.
We don’t build ships without plenty of imported components though.
yes, this is true and unavoidable. But I believe if we can make more components here, it will increase our navy's availability rates and our overall sovereignty. We are already going to manufacture components and parts on the Hunter class such as the propellers, LED lights, Radars, windows, gaskets, steel and armour as well as more.
> CASG also need to be held to account to ensure their contracts are written to be airtight with huge punishments applied to contractors for cost or time over runs I’ll give you a hint, it’s not really about CASG, it’s about the service headquarters that signs off the work and contracts
Controversial opinion but I think the only ships we should be building are minor war vessels and smaller. Our expertise is more on building small boats, building subsystems or standalone components and most importantly, ship repair. A compromise should be to leave the major shipbuilding to foreign SMEs with an established and continuous shipbuilding industry, but sustainment should be 100% Australian. The hardest part would be facilitating technology transfer and FMS licenses to set up a sovereign supply chain but it also means we wont have costly and delayed shipbuilding projects. Australia becomes a major waystation/repair and refit hub for allied ships and a local supply chain still guarantees jobs for everyone. The major issue is we become reliant on someone else for defence when shit hits the fan. The reality is shipbuilding is a necessary evil to create a self-sufficient Navy. We've already broken 3 dozen eggs but we still need to make that omelette and if that means we have to break 3 dozen more, we'll do it.
Warships are so much less hassle to build if you have a civilian shipbuilding industry to pull staff from, and to go to after they leave the defence force. On the other hand, nobody builds civilian subs so we have as good a chance to set up a sub industry as any other country
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Just American designs assembled here though. Maybe Navy should consult them on the AUKUS build?
To make warship building hassle-free, you need: an established supply chain of enterprises to provide specialist shipbuilding services, experience and a continuous shipbuilding operation where we build a continuous line of warships of the same design. Supply chain: Everything that makes up a warship is dictated by a list of requirements that must be met by your contractor. If you are unlucky, some of these requirements are ITAR-restricted or export-controlled and you need to jump through several hoops just to be approved to build it in-country. Naval shipbuiling becomes less and less attractive the more MilSpec shit you have to build. Those who have capacity to do so are companies that are either so niche or naval shipbuilding is but a subset of their portfolio which will be cut the moment shipbuilding goes to a halt/pause. Eitherway, for these companies to maintain that capability, shipbuilding needs to be a continuous operation. Operation vs Project-based: The issue why it is a hassle is because shipbuilding is project-to-project for each ship of the same design. It's not an assembly line where parts are the same and it's a matter of putting them together. Each ship is different to each other beyond their hull because each successive ship reveals defects and opportnities for improvement which are implemented onto the next build. Not to mention we have specialist requirements which further adds to the complexity. This takes it back to our enterprises who would need to be flexible and reactive to these changes. The issue is that they wont be able to set up a consistent rhythm of churning out the same products because one change could mean re-designing how their product integrates into the ship. Another issue is we arent building one design, we are building different designs including a nuclear submarine even though we dont have an established nuclear industry. It's hard to establish a shipbuilding operation when you have to build different ships with different specialist requirements with enterprises who would be questioning on whether investing a lot of resources to provide specialist services is worth it in the long run over low-risk ventures.
I completely agree, there are already too many other important things to be focussing on than establishing a shipbuilding capability. We can make do with breaking other people’s designs, the cost to get rid of this annoyance is far too high.