Aircraft carrier in Navy's $4bn wish list
By Ian McPhedran
March 25, 2008 12:00am
THE Royal Australian Navy has produced a secret $4 billion "wish list" that includes an aircraft carrier, an extra air warfare destroyer and long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles for its submarine fleet.
The RAN wants a third 26,000 tonne amphibious ship equipped with vertical take-off jet fighters, a fourth $2 billion air warfare destroyer and cruise missiles that could strike targets thousands of kilometres away.
The list comes at a time when the RAN can barely find enough sailors to crew its existing fleet.
It also coincides with a Federal Government push to save $1 billion a year in defence costs as well as a government-ordered White Paper which will set the spending priorities for the next two decades.
According to insiders, the Government was unimpressed by the RAN's push for more firepower at a time when the Government is aiming to slash spending.
"The navy is out of control," one defence source said.
It is understood that the wish list was the final straw in the tense relationship between the Government and Chief of Navy Vice-Admiral Russ Shalders - who will be replaced in July by Rear Admiral Russell Crane.
Admiral Shalders last year also pushed hard for an expensive US-designed destroyer, but lost out to the cheaper, Spanish option.
Taxpayers will spend more than $11 billion to provide the RAN with the two 26,000-tonne amphibious ships and three air-warfare destroyers equipped with 48 vertical launch missiles.
The two big ships, known as Landing Helicopter Docks, are designed for amphibious assaults and will be fitted with helicopters and be capable of carrying more than 1000 troops and heavy vehicles such as tanks and trucks.
The RAN wants a third ship to carry vertical take-off fighter jets.
Its last aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, was decommissioned in 1982 before being sold for scrap.
The latest ships are 10m longer and 8m wider than the Melbourne and will be built in Spain and fitted out at the Tenix shipyard in Melbourne. The Spanish navy will carry 30 Harrier jump jets aboard its similar ships.
They will each cost more than $1.7 billion. The fighters would cost about $100 million each. The destroyers will cost about $2 billion each, taking the total cost to more than $4 billion.
Tomahawk cruise missiles cost about $1 million each and can carry a 450kg conventional or 200 kiloton nuclear warhead more than 2500km.
In the past Australia has stayed away from long-range strike missiles for fear of triggering a regional arms race.
The wish list is what the RAN would like to see make up part of the White Paper process which will later this year provide a strategic blueprint for the defence of the nation for the next 20 years.
That process will direct new spending worth more than $50 billion over the next 10 years.