No formal written advice on the building of Australia’s future submarine fleet was sought from the Department of Defence before the government announced its tender process, a committee has heard.
Secretary of the department, Dennis Richardson, told a Senate committee on Monday that the government had canvassed “different options” with the department before settling on a so-called competitive evaluation process.
“There had been a variety of discussion on submarine matters,” Richardson said, classifying the talks as “formal”.
But when pressed by the shadow defence minister, Stephen Conroy, if the government had sought formal written advice from the department, as is the usual protocol for large procurements, Richardson said no.
“No, not formal written advice,” the secretary said. “I’m not aware of advice being sought in writing.”
A spokeswoman for the defence minister, Kevin Andrews, said that the evaluation process was announced after “extensive consultation with [the Department of] Defence and a number of formal discussions”.
“The competitive evaluation process provides a way for Australian industry to have the greatest possible involvement in the program, without risking capability, cost, schedule or risk,” the spokeswoman said.
Andrews announced the evaluation process, which is different from an open tender, shortly after taking over the portfolio from David Johnston in February. Johnston lost a seat on the government frontbench after criticising South Australian shipbuilding firm ASC, saying he would not trust the government shipbuilder to build a canoe.
Labor said the government was paving the way to break a pre-election promise to build Australia’s submarine fleet in Adelaide.
“This multibillion dollar project, the largest defence procurement in Australia’s history – and vital to Australia’s national security – is in total chaos due to Tony Abbott’s scheme to deliver on his secret deal with Japan,” a joint statement between Conroy and the assistant shadow defence minister, David Feeney, said.
“[Richardson’s evidence] adds to the overwhelming evidence that Tony Abbott invented his competitive evaluation process to save his own job and to justify his ‘captain’s pick’ to send our future submarines offshore,” the statement said.
The winners of the tender, which is worth up to $50bn, will be announced after the evaluation process is completed at the end of 2015.
