Ill-informed, biased and untruthful – or absolute humbug?

Ausmarine Editorial – April 2014

I was taken aback when I read the ill-considered letter from Commodore Mike Deeks. (published in April Ausmarine reproduced below) He has badly misrepresented my comments. Perhaps he is still in pain from his bitten tongue!

Assuming though, that he has simply misread my "rants" or comments, I will try here to clarify them as simply as possible:-

• 1.    I am not anti-submarines nor am I anti-Navy. On the contrary, I am a great supporter of, and have a very strong and verifiable interest, in both.
• 2.    I strongly believe our Navy should have the best available affordable equipment including ships.
• 3.    I am, on the other hand, very anti-waste, particularly government waste and, more particularly, defence procurement waste. I try to be an economic realist.
• 4.    I am very strongly opposed to government ownership of businesses of any kind, especially shipbuilding. It invariably results in grotesque waste, hopeless inefficiencies and, often, corruption.
• 5.    I believe we operate in a global market. We should take advantage of that from both buying and selling perspectives. We should use our and other nations' comparative advantages to the full.
• 6.    I very strongly believe that ASC has proved itself to be hopelessly un-economic. Indeed, I understand we are now seeing further enormous time and cost blowouts on the AWD programme! ASC should be liquidated as soon as economically possible. To combine welfare (ie. job creation) with warfare is idiotic. That is what is being proposed for ASC.
• 7.    We should buy and have maintained our commercial and naval ships and equipment on the world market on commercially competitive terms.
• 8.    The Air Force seems to survive quite well with a fleet that is entirely overseas sourced. Some of its maintenance is conducted offshore. Why can't the Navy do likewise?

Deeks claims I have jumped "on the media bandwagon". That is an ignorant and fatuous comment. If, as he claims, he has read several previous issues of Ausmarine he would know that is simply untrue. In fact, I go way back with the Collins subs to when they were ordered at a price of $550 million each. (What did they eventually cost, Commodore?) My interest is easily verifiable.

Deeks boasts of Australia's "proud submarine history stretching back 100 years". The reality is there were some mighty big gaps in that history including, very importantly, all of World War Two and the Korean War, when we survived with no submarines of our own! He draws a long bow there and fails to mention that all the few submarines that we operated pre-Collins were built in the UK. The Collins, of course, were designed in Sweden and the vast bulk of their equipment and materials were imported.

He has failed too to acknowledge the well known and documented readiness and reliability failings of the Collins Class. He conveniently ignores the obscene cost and time blowouts of ASC built vessels.

I bow to Deeks' detailed knowledge and experience of operating submarines but I trust he will acknowledge my 40 years of successful business management and investment experience. That has given me some idea of cost-benefit analysis, project management and capital expenditure processes among other matters all of which are important in shipowning and shipbuilding.

Thanks to my lengthy career in marine publishing and a general interest prior to that, I have, since 1968, visited and studied many hundreds of shipyards – big, small, successful, unsuccessful, civil and military – all over the world. I have thus developed a knowledge of what works or doesn't work in shipbuilding. Its accuracy has been proved by our impressively low bad debt incidence.

So, I have learnt a bit about shipbuilding as well as business. In the course of that lengthy career I have also learnt something about human behaviour, politics and how governments work and, more importantly, don't work. Governments are good at some things but they are hopeless at business. Shipbuilding is a business.

I agree that submarines are not like commercial vessels. It is ludicrous, however, to claim that their building contracts cannot be identical to those used for commercial ships.

Our new Federal Government has just rid us of a "sheltered workshop" car manufacturing industry. It appears that the bloated and badly mis-managed Qantas has been put in its place as was SPC Ardmona. Let us hope that it follows the same course with the equally mendicant ASC.

So, with respect to Commodore Deeks, rather than filling the minds of my readers with untruths, I continue to try to give them my carefully considered opinions based on considerable research, experience and careful thought.

Finally, a quick Google search reveals that Mr Deeks' current job title is listed as West Australian Site Executive of Raytheon. In this context that is rather more important than his illustrious naval record. It is disappointing that he chose to omit that very important fact from his letter. Raytheon, of course, is a senior partner with ASC in the Australian warship building alliance!

Neil Baird

Defending Australia's government-owned submarine industry

FROM:    Mike Deeks CSC, Commodore (retired), Royal Australian Navy

SIR
I am writing to object to the ill-informed and biased comments made in several issues of your publication on maritime defence matters. Neil Baird seems more intent on stirring up readers and filling their minds with untruths rather than making thoughtful and well-researched comments on topical matters.

I bit my tongue some months ago when he jumped on the media bandwagon to deride the Collins-class submarines, but I could hold back no longer after his diatribe regarding ASC and naval shipbuilding in the February edition.

Regarding the Collins-class submarines, as a former long-serving submariner and former head of the Australian Submarine Force, I can tell your readers categorically that the Collins-class are exceptional submarines that serve Australia's national interests very well.

The submarine force is known as the "silent service", because of the nature of its tasks. You will not see a lot of self-promotion on its part – security constraints make certain of that. If it did comment, it would most likely be to say that the submarines are out there doing their jobs, and doing it very well, in submarines well-suited to Australia's unique operating environment.

For Mr Baird to suggest that we should close down our submarine building and maintenance industry and import our submarines shows a complete lack of understanding of the global submarine industry, the kind of submarines available from overseas, and the distinctive requirements of Australia's submarine force.

To compare Singapore's submarine force to ours is ludicrous. Singapore has a fledgling submarine force of second-hand boats purchased from, and largely supported by, its Swedish parent navy. Whilst the operating environment of the surrounding waterways of Singapore and Sweden may be quite different, the limited range and endurance requirements of the respective submarine fleets are very similar.

In contrast, Australia has a proud submarine history stretching back 100 years. Over the last century, we as a nation have built up an impressive body of knowledge of submarine operations, design and maintenance, and we are well-versed in the critical characteristics required by our submarine force. The fact that we can build and maintain our own submarines
here on home soil is a significant strategic advantage that many other countries in our area of interest do not possess.

Submarines are not like commercial vessels. They are designed to be sent in harm's way and to operate in the harshest of environments, unsupported for long periods of time. Their design and maintenance requirements are much more exacting than that of a ferry or crew boat.

Submarine maintenance, therefore, comes at a cost premium. Yet, submarines are more cost-effective than any other strategic deterrent capability and unlike other deterrents are also highly effective for the gathering of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information on matters of vital importance to Australia's national interests.

I trust Neil Baird adopts a fresh approach to his editorialising by seeking input from those who know what they are talking about before he launches into another rant on subjects outside his domain knowledge.