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| Collins class Submarine |
CAMERON STEWART
AUSTRALIA faces a period without any submarines to defend the country unless the government takes urgent action to revise its plans to build 12 new submarines.
A report to be released today by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute gives a damning assessment of the lack of progress made by the Gillard government in implementing its promise, made in the 2009 defence white paper, to build a fleet of submarines to replace the Collins-class boats.
"That's not going to happen -- we're already past the point at which a force of that size and capability can be in place even by the mid-2030s," the report says.
"If current plans are adhered to, a capability gap is inevitable sometime in the late 2020s, and a period of no submarine capability at all is possible."
The ASPI report says the government has done little since the 2009 white paper to begin the long process of choosing and building the new submarines that will succeed the existing six-boat, Collins-class fleet when they are retired from 2022.
"Many options, including that of a locally designed submarine, are looking increasingly implausible," the report says.
The long lead times required to build a sophisticated submarine as envisaged in the white paper means that any new Australian-designed and built submarine would not be available until 2027 at the earliest and possibly as late as 2034, creating a so-called capability gap for up to a decade.
Read the full story at The Australian