Contract Tightens Scrutiny on Sub Fleet Maintenance

01 Juli 2012

Collins class submarien (photo : DMO)

The Australian Submarine Corporation will be subject to closer scrutiny under a new five-year contract to service the nation's troubled Collins class submarine fleet.

A Federal Government review of the fleet last year found serious flaws with the way the six vessels are maintained.

At times, Australia had only one working Collins submarine.

The company signed a new rolling contract on Saturday, which is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Managing director Steve Ludlam says the new arrangements place greater emphasis on the company's performance.

"What we've previously been doing is we've been working within what's called the cost plus environment; so every piece of work that we've done has been paid for," he said.

"This performance-based contract actually requires us to deliver submarine availability, so essentially we're contracting for - in very simple terms - number of days at sea."

Mr Ludlam says the new contract will be good for both business and the Navy.

"We've got to start measuring our performance and improve it over the period," he said.

"We've done that in the last two and a half years. There's measurable and significant improvement and now we've formalised that in this performance-based contract."

New Vessel

Meanwhile, Defence has unveiled the latest ship in its fleet.

In March, the Federal Government announced it had bought the ship, and on Saturday in Perth it launched the renamed Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield.

It will join HMAS Tobruk and HMAS Choules to provide humanitarian and disaster relief.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith says Ocean Shield will also undertake patrols of the Southern Ocean to detect any boats operating illegally in the region.

He also announced Australian personnel will take part in a training exercise with the Spanish Armada Ship SPS Cantabria next year.

Mr Smith says the deployment of Cantabria will take place in February and strengthen bilateral ties between Spain and Australia.

(ABC)