Debate on Australia’s future submarines is understandably focused on the information that floats out of the Defence Department about France’s Naval Group and the $80 billion program to design and build the boats.
It’s very sensible to be concerned about the program because of the contrast between the assurances Defence officials provide to parliament that everything is proceeding according to plan and the episodic need for high-level political intervention to resolve fundamental issues between Defence and its French industrial partner.
We saw this with the tortured, delayed effort to resolve the ‘strategic partnering agreement’ that took almost three years to sign. We saw it again this year when Naval Group and Defence were unable to resolve the issue of the Australian industry share in the program, a year after apparently agreeing to do so, without the intervention of various ministers during Naval Group boss Pierre Eric Pommellet’s recent visit to Australia.