OPINION: Boosting defence quickly and cheaply

INDULGE yourself with a fascinating read of Admiral Sir Reginal Henderson’s 1911 recommendation for the protection of Australia’s coast. This report he wrote after a personal nationwide tour that he and a close team completed in 18-months covering every State and Territory. A mammoth task.

For the protection of Australia at the time of 4.5 million people, he recommended a fleet of 52 vessels including 9 submarines, 14 cruisers, 12 torpedo boat destroyers and 3 depot ships. He also recommended the fleet be increase proportionally with the increase in population.

Some 115 years later, with a population of 28 million, Australia disappointingly now has a naval fleet of only 49 vessels, 70% of which are quite small and many are non-combatant. The myopic choice of submarine designs to date has been diesel electric, absolutely no match for a nuclear sub in operating range or capability, and not remotely considered as a deterrent by any likely enemy.

Are Australia, New Zealand and the South West Pacific nations too reliant on our US big brother thus avoiding manning-up to our own responsibilities? Maybe Donald Trump thinks so.  

AUKUS looks positive but not for an early boost to our dismal defence capability.

Admiral Henderson proposed a fleet of four armoured cruisers, and five protected cruisers to the sub-base port of Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, which is presently Australia’s area of highest border incursions. Today, there are no naval vessels based at Thursday Island. Hello? Is anyone home?

Interestingly Admiral Henderson visited Cooktown, Cairns and Thursday Island and suggested that the protection of our north-eastern seaboard should extend to our neighbouring countries in the South Pacific and the defence policy to be treated as a whole. Fiji was considered a centre of regional influence at the time and still is today.

Defence, and navy in particular, is generally the first budget item to be cut by politicians running a rearguard action covering financial shortcomings in their weak leadership. Julia Gillard in 2013 slashed the Defence budget and Anthony Albanese, promised 12 new ships pre the 2022 election four years ago.

Using an advantageous acquisition strategy, sensible governments have their Defence fleet capability significantly enhanced by dormant charters of commercial vessels. My observation over decades shows governments themselves are incapable of picking the right vessel for the task, and usually end up with “World’s Worst Practice”.

Dormant charters are pre-signed at an agreed rate, so that in the event of conflict or emergency response, the vessel comes under military control on an hour’s notice.

The Falklands War was a classic case where ‘ships taken up from trade’ (STUFT) totalled 45 vessels combining the necessary ingredients for a successful military campaign.

The main transport task of materials and equipment was carried out by passenger liners, ro-ro ferries, container ships and freighters, totalling 21 vessels, and interestingly enough, all of which were fitted with helipads prior to departure to the war zone.

Facing budget challenges after decades of bickering leadership and spiralling debt, every nation should focus on financially effective dormant chartering of newer coastal vessels capable of multi-tasking.

South Pacific Nations including Australia and New Zealand have a variety of coastal commercial vessels 60-90 metres. Smart, experienced people suggest their governments should incentivise operators to ensure that new coastal vessels should be dormant charter compliant like Seatransport’s Stern Landing Vessel, which has container and ro-ro capability and have:

• An extra 6 x 2 berth cabins for military personnel 

• Extra dry and reefer stores  

• A separate communications centre 

• Helipad with manned and unmanned drone capability 

 The key advantage of a Dormant Charter SLV would be the capability of unprepared beach landing and axle loadings for Himars and heavy fuel trucks, bulldozers and emergency response equipment, for our annual onslaught of regional cyclones and the occasional tsunami.  

These dormant charters could easily be incentivised by the government providing the loan guarantee. This would allow funders to charter the assets to Defence, tapping into a higher OPEX funding. This is a very economical way to boost border protection capability, military and emergency response capabilities, and to actively train personnel that we desperately need. 

Most regional coastal vessels often work on a schedule visiting several ports and include 3-4 berthings/sailings a day in different weather conditions, which is perfect training for navigators and deck officers. With diesel electric multi-screw propulsion, bow thrusters and automated cargo handling equipment these would be engineering and electrical training centres that any Military team would envy. The flybridge deck is an ideal aviation training platform for manned and unmanned drone operations. 

Most coastal vessels have sizeable underdeck tank capacity to carry fuel to remote communities, in the event of conflict, this extra fuel would be of key importance. 

These dormant charter support vessels have two significant advantages in not requiring Defence capital budget expenditure, and not having to run the painfully slow and costly gauntlet of the traditional Naval vessel acquisition process.  

Coupled with the Dormant charter proposal, cyclone-proof mini-ports capable of handling 2 x 100-metre vessels, should be dotted around the coast at every 50 kilometres to cover all defence and emergency response scenarios. (For context Gujarat in India has a port every 53 kms, UK has a port every 65 kms which help defend it through two world wars). 

Around northern Australia all the way between Brisbane and Geraldton, we have ports only every 700kms !    

Queensland premier Annastacia Paluszczuk passed a 620-page Sustainable Ports Act immediately she was elected in 2015, which in effect stopped any new port development in the state.   

Current premier David Crisafulli hasn’t shown any urgency in repealing this, and ignores eight bipartisan state shipping studies that have been done over the last 30 years and unanimously recommending coastal shipping and mini-port infrastructures.  

Tsunami and cyclone events normally destroy and isolate road access in or out of disaster areas, so mini ports become very strategic in emergency response duties. 

Imagine if you will, border protection with a Defence fleet being effectively increased by 100% in size without anyone crawling for budget approval.