The biggest joke about all of this is we won't get these 'magical' subs until 2050 at the earliest.

In a senate enquiry they admitted they'll have to do 2 full refurbishments of the Collins class to take us to 2050. 

Lengthy article below but you do have to laugh at the theatre going on at the moment.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/sinking-feeling-as-submarine-shambles-dives-to-a-new-low/news-story/20c56d8c919c64ad7af31c6e4e2a538e

Crucial testimony to Senate committees, plus parliamentary answers to questions, have gone substantially unreported but tell us one terrible truth – Australia is going to be completely unprepared militarily for any maritime security challenge in the next two decades, without any upgraded submarine capability and more completely reliant on the US than ever before.

As the government testimony unintentionally makes clear, the real weight of the AUKUS announcements has been to abolish Australia’s future submarine program and to effectively abolish, or at least radically diminish, our naval shipbuilding industry.

That this has effectively passed without comment is a sign of the shallow, debased nature of our national debate.

Our politics now deals overwhelmingly in symbols, the more distant the better

Australian defence policy now resembles a speculative mining stock at the height of a minerals boom. Whatever you do, don’t drill, was the speculator’s mantra. As soon as you drill, you destroy share value.

The same is true of our defence capabilities. While they are pure speculation – announcements with no results in the physical universe – they are soaringly popular, hailed as historic, and evaluated at their exaggerated potential.

As soon as there is an attempt to produce anything concrete, it turns to dust – politically and, often enough, almost literally.

Vice Admiral Michael Noonan, the Chief of Navy, gave critical testimony before a Senate committee on October 15. Under probing questioning from Labor senator Kimberley Kitching and independent Rex Patrick, he revealed that the navy fully expected that we could be operating the Collins-class submarines into the 2050s and beyond.

Not only that, the prospects of the nuclear-powered boats arriving is so distant that the navy is already considering not one Life of Type Extension for the Collins boats, but two.

This is truly grotesque. It makes a mockery of the diplomatic achievements of AUKUS and reveals that, in substance, the Morrison government has been just as irresponsible in providing for defence as all the governments have before it since John Howard.


We operate now six conventional Collins-class submarines. They were commissioned by Bob Hawke in the 1980s and built in the 1990s. Submarines are a potent military force. They are asymmetric; they inflict serious damage at relatively low cost. Because the enemy does not know where they are, they pose questions to any potential aggressor in a way other systems do not.

Nonetheless, they are not remotely the be all and end all of military capability. The age of the submarine will probably one day come to an end as their stealth declines. But for the moment, they are the apex predators of the sea. But the ocean is unforgiving, and you cannot keep subs operating forever.

The Collins boats were scheduled to begin retiring in the mid 2020s. Because no government has taken one single decision that has stuck for more than five minutes on replacing the Collins, all six boats will now undergo a full Life of Type Extension. This is like a major rebuild. The sub is cut in half and all the internal systems updated. The process takes two years. The first, HMAS Farncomb, begins its LOTE in 2026. It will be out of service until 2028. The LOTE notionally gives it 10 more years of life.

But only under the most wildly optimistic fantasy will an Australian nuclear-powered sub arrive by 2038, so, Kitching asked Noonan, does not that mean there will be a capability gap? No, said Noonan, we can keep them trundling on. So, asked an incredulous Kitching, the Collins could be serving in the whole decade 2040 to 2050?

“Potentially, yes,” Noonan ­replied.

Patrick, intrigued by this, sought further detail. Noonan ­finally conceded to Patrick: “The LOTE will give us 10 years, as you’ve correctly indicated, but I am not writing off the opportunity to conduct a further LOTE”.

What? This would means a Collins submarine that was commissioned in the 1980s, built in the 1990s and meant to retire in the 2020s, would be sawn in half and stuck back together and operate until the late 2030s, and then be sawn in half a second time and operate until the late 2040s, and presumably, if necessary, be sawn in half a third time and operate into the 2050s.

This is what the AUKUS agreement has yielded so far – a cast-iron guarantee that, if we follow current plans, we will have the oldest, most decrepit submarines we can possibly imagine as the front line of our defence for decades to come.

The costs and dangers of keeping the Collins going so long are extreme. The first LOTE will cost billions of dollars, almost as much as a new submarine.

But then there is the question of safety. The Collins will in their later decades be much older than was the Indonesian submarine, the KRI Nanggala-402, which sank to the ocean floor off the coast of Bali with the loss of all crew earlier this year.

The B-52 bomber is an example of a platform which has kept going for decades with endless upgrades. But the air is different from the sea. Even in the air, sometimes safety becomes impossible. The F1 11 fighter bombers had to be grounded all at once and all of a sudden because of safety issues.

As Australia struggles to keep its Collins fleet operational in the 2040s and 50s, there is a real chance that at some point the boats’ safety cannot be guaranteed and then they are all taken out of the water at once, and we have nothing.

But might we not get the ­nuclear subs earlier than that?

The prospects look increasingly dismal. Although we have Americans on our subs already, and have had Australians on US subs, as Noonan made clear, no Australian submariner has had access to “the back of the boat”, where the nuclear reactor drives the submarine.

Admiral Michael Gilday, the chief of US Naval Operations, has said he thinks any Australian nuclear-propelled submarine is “decades away”. The good admiral is hardly likely to diss an ally. His words probably represent fairly extreme optimism. Taken at face value, they mean the first nuclear-propelled sub doesn’t arrive until the early 2040s at best.

But it takes a navy years to learn how to operate a nuclear sub. And it is inconceivable we would get subsequent nuclear-powered subs faster than one every three years. So we don’t get our fleet of eight until half way through the 2060s, when the dear old Collins boats will be presumably going through fourth and fifth facelifts.

Am I being too tough here?

During the week, the government confirmed, via an answer in parliament from Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price, that it intends to build the nuclear subs in Adelaide. No one believes this is credible. If we persist with the idea that, with zero nuclear experience of any kind, and with no relevant submarine-building experience of any kind for decades, we can start from scratch and build a nuclear submarine in Adelaide.

We are living in a fool’s paradise which can yield only bitter ­disappointment and further decades of delay.

What about leasing? The US is retiring its Los Angeles-class nuclear subs as it builds about two Virginia-class subs per year. There are 28 LA-class boats still in service. They are already 25 to 36 years old. The US has decided to take the five youngest of the LA boats and refurbish them. This involves a full workover, similar to the LOTE. It also involves refuelling the reactors. That will take three years and cost about $720m.

The US is behind China in the number of submarines it has, the number of submarines it can deploy to the Pacific, and in various metrics of maritime conflict. It is extremely unlikely to take a nuclear boat from its battle line to give to Australia which has no experience, no record, and no capability in operating it.

So the absolute best thing we could get might be an extremely elderly LA-class boat which we wouldn’t know how to operate. This might be useful for training. But, in fact, many key points of technology will be quite different between an LA-class and a Virginia, which presumably is the type of boat we would like to operate eventually. Furthermore, the Americans by then would have got out of the business of managing and supporting LA-class boats.

The record of navies that buy second-hand submarines is pretty woeful. The Canadians thought they’d do subs on the cheap and bought four second-hand British conventional boats. It was a disaster. In 2019, the Canadian sub­marine fleet did not provide one single day at sea.

Leasing from the Brits would be even more difficult. The Brits still have some Trafalgar-class subs in service as they move to the Astutes. The Brits are light years ahead of us in nuclear technology and even they have found the Astutes very difficult to bring to full service. If we leased a Trafalgar boat, it would again necessarily be very old. And it has different reactor technology from the Astute.

So we would be operating and training on something different from the boat we would want to ­acquire, and the Brits themselves would have moved out of the business of supporting such boats.

There was another, truly ­terrifying sentence in Noonan’s Senate testimony. Please, Patrick implored, promise me that we are not going to create some unique Australian design here – that we will get, simply, either a Virginia or an Astute?

Noonan’s reply: “Certainly, Senator, my expectation is that the work that Jonathan Meade’s task force will be leading will be in that space of considering the best technologies and the best co-operation that the US and UK can offer, with a view to a submarine from that DNA that this meets our requirements.”

A submarine from that DNA? Yikes! Good Godfrey! Is there truly no end to Australian madness? Another unique Australian naval project, another hundred years of solitude, another taxidermist’s nightmare splicing features from all sorts of incompatible bodies into one Frankenstein’s monster of which, unlike the original, no one will ever say: “It’s alive!”

There are two broad ways that the nuclear-propelled submarine from AUKUS can proceed. The most rational and best would be for whoever is prime minister after the next election to say yes, they are proceeding with a nuclear-­propelled sub – but it will be built in the US when they can fit us into their schedule and we can operate it. In the meantime, Adelaide will build additional Collins-class boats, not even the Son of Collins, not an evolved design, just the ­Collins with all the upgrades the LOTE will confer. We might build six of these, avoiding the effective death of the naval shipbuilding ­industry which seems likely, and continuing to have a modest conventional submarine capability, which is a lot better than nothing. We cannot get to this rational decision as long as we persist with the Adelaide nuke-build fantasy. And one day the nukes will come along, built in America.

The other way this project proceeds is the characteristic Australian way. Nothing at all happens for years and years and years. But we talk about it relentlessly. We ­finally manage to start on some modest facilities in Adelaide. And it all ends in tears down the track.

Meanwhile, one thing we emphatically are not doing is responding to the urgent maritime national security challenge we face. Psychologically, we are the same as the Afghan government which fell to the Taliban. We just assume the Americans will always take care of business for us.

We are more fully strategic clients than we have ever been. More hopeless. More fatuous. More incapable of taking a single military action in our own interest.

Nuclear subs may arrive at the very same time as we hit net-zero carbon emissions, sometime the other side of never.

It's interesting though. The French build and have nuclear subs so they could have possibly sold us nuclear subs if we asked for them. So this whole, America makes nuclear subs and that's why we're going with them narrative is all bullshit.

It's purely politics not business or security because as that article above clearly states we aint getting these subs until 2050.

So yeah, our subs, that you can hear halfway across the world, will be clunking around the oceans for another 3 decades. 

From my poor understanding of this, costs were climbing and Australia wasn't really happy with what we were supposed to be getting so they baled on France in, what seems, quite an unprofessional manner for political reasons.

BUT, having said that, we haven't signed anything with the US yet. Just an 'undertaking' or some such. 

France did originally offer the nuclear subs and we would have had some by now. We, however, said we wanted diesel subs. They essentially re-designed their nuclear subs to diesel subs for us.

It is the ABC and they are lefty, pinko, wokesters but here's an explainer as to why the French are pissed. 

Also I just learnt that Scomo's people leaked US stuff too.

https://fb.watch/92PbjF29fj/

I like the 2050 part. That makes the whole thing even more hilarious. I'm sure China is shaking in their boots at our 'force projection' 

What a twat, see that's the problem - he 9like most of the nationals) should be back stabbing on the local council, such is his mould. Somehow he is in the big chair, and he cannot change his spots or adapt. He has no vision or grand ideas for creation. He just plays gutter politics non stop. He's consistently preoccupied with a 24hour poll and making himself look good. 

We've all worked with someone like him. We've all hated someone like him. 

How's this Tim Smith prick saying his career shouldn't be over,. FFS - its not a career! You're a politician - the people vote for your job, you're not meant to just have a cushy job for life.

He has rhe backing of the feds. The state libs don't want nothing to do with him.  Shows how fucked up the federal party is 

excellent news!

:cool:

Yes we Dan: Andrews on track for third term
Exclusive
Rachel Baxendale
VICTORIAN POLITICAL REPORTER
11:52PM November 19, 2021


Daniel Andrews is on track to win a third term as Victorian premier with an increased majority with 12 months to go to next year’s state election, according to the first major Newspoll since the 2018 “Danslide” that reduced the Coalition to 27 of 88 lower house seats.

In a period when Victoria faced six Covid lockdowns covering 262 days, the ALP’s primary vote has increased from 42.9 per cent at the 2018 Victorian election to 44 per cent, while the Coalition’s primary vote support also has increased from 35.2 per cent in 2018 to 36 per cent in the latest poll.

The Greens marginally have increased their primary vote to 11 per cent from 10.7 per cent at the 2018 election, while support for “others’’ has dropped to 9 per cent from 11.2 per cent.

On a two-party-preferred basis, Mr Andrews’ ALP leads the Coalition 58 per cent to 42 per cent compared with the 2018 2PP election result of 57.3 per cent to 42.7 per cent.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/yes-we-dan-andrews-on-track-for-third-term/news-story/d0a28c3d76f6da7e9ecc0f7166b60045

Clearly the majority of Victorians must like a dictatorship... 

right wing talking points^

he's the elected leader of the democratically elected party.. not a dictator

also it was horrific the politically motivated attack on Andy Meddick's daughter during the week... those kind of tactics are more akin to those who support a dictatorship

I should have put a /s behind the message.

As for the Andy Meddick daughter situation, that's terrible.

yes they really are a special breed these fweedumb types

good to Pauline Hanson's anti-vax bill is defeated in the Senate

It’s psychotic that we have people who believe in make believe invisible characters dictating government policy and getting politicians to do some ‘work’ 

the rogue anti-vaxxer pollies are going to get wiped out at the next election now the public see how cuckoo in the head they really are

how to tell if a protest movement is far-right

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FFBbXOmUcAM4Nn8?format=jpg&name=medium

I know Jacqui Lambie doesn't get the biggest fans, but she is quite spot on with her recent remarks. I don't agree with her on a lot of things but at least she is trying to do her job.

agreed, her presentation on vaxxing to not and the ADF scenario is the kind of POV we like to see as voters......
She has become a better maverick than expected on the 2 subjects.

I can't see why so many politicians on teh centre left, centre, an d centre right are so wishy washy and limpwristed.
She has shown when you talk straight people respond. 

Call a spade a spade.

Clive Palmer is going to put a dump truck full of money into the next election via Craig Kelly. 

Dan has gotten his emergency bill across the line.

the far right are in tatters

nah, they're giving each other haircuts on the steps of parliament acting like it's some sort of massive history making act of defiance :D

these delusional Q-tards don't realise they're the last dying embers of white supremacy

the only history they're making is a coda to a bygone era

We are a pawn - https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2021-11-30/us-allies-benefit-from-china-trade-row-with-australia/100659480

LNP.....the better economic managers

Not saying it's good because clearly it's not but having everything we grow and dig out of the ground going just to China is not the best idea.

There's been a few winners out of this trade embargo with some producers finding other markets at higher prices. Obviously not those farmers selling barley which sucks arse for them. 

I don't think it's just an economic issue, but also a foreign policy issue. 

Why are you picking a diplomatic fight with your biggest trading partner/second super power, with no alternatives source for trade income in line, exit strategy or back up from allies? What are you trying to achieve apart from looking like a toothless tiger?

I agree that we shouldn't focus on digging and selling rocks. But it's our advantage. We should be diversifying when it comes to income streams and trading partners - but we're just too short term in thinking.

I agree - but what was their plan B? It all began with morrison wanting to be trumps little deputy. 

Dutton now is just irresposible and moronic. Where has it all gotten them? I am all up for sticking it to china but who do these spastic think they are acting tough to china. They'd sneeze and we'd fall over. 

It's achieved nothing 

yeah 100%