SA Liberals Swayed By Sub Tender

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At least two Liberals appear to have been swayed by the Prime Minister's public commitment to throw open the $25 billion-plus purchase of new submarines to a competitive tender.

South Australian Senator Sean Edwards confirmed he had voted against Monday morning's spill motion after Tony Abbott promised to subject the purchase of a replacement for the Collins Class fleet to a competitive evaluation.

MP for the Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh, Matt Williams, declined to say outright that he

backed Mr Abbott in the spill motion but said the tender commitment did "help my position … on the vote this morning" and said the government was now "on the right track".

But amid fears of a political backlash in South Australia and also concerns about Japan's lack of experience exporting military hardware, the Abbott government was expected in defence circles to announce a competitive process even before the leadership crisis.

Mr Andrews said the tender would be managed by the Defence Department and would consider capability, cost, schedule, technical risk and value for money."Any Australian company that can credibly meet these criteria will be considered on merit, as will potential international partners," he said.

Australia does not have the expertise to build a submarine from scratch on its own, meaning it will need an international partner. Submarine makers in Sweden, Germany and France have all expressed strong interest.

Entire Article Here

Listening to Ross Greenwood talking to Mr Andrews on Macquarie Radio this arvo on the way home, Ross brought up the subject of the problems with the first lot of Collins class subs.

Mr Andrews said "we have learned from that".

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Stuff up No. 1 on the first day of Good Government.  

Defence Minister Kevin Andrews leads Coalition delegation to Adelaide to discuss submarine project - but semantics descend into farce

10 Feb

ON its first day as a “good Government” the Coalition has become mired in confusion over its Future Submarines program.

Half a dozen Federal MPs, most worried about their electoral future, flew to Adelaide on Tuesday to talk about the policy but between them were not able to clarify exactly how the Government’s plan for its new submarine fleet would work.

Defence Minister Kevin Andrews announced there would be a “competitive evaluation process” but was unable to explain what that would mean and how exactly it was different from a tender process, except to say that a tender process had “a very specific meaning”.

Experts have consistently called for a tender to decide who wins the lucrative bid for the multi-billion dollar project.

“I will use the words I choose to use. What we’re doing is a competitive evaluation process,” Mr Andrews said.

The Minister said the government would look at the capability and cost of a range of options and decide on merit who gets the bulk of the work.

He did guarantee that Adelaide-based shipbuilder ASC is in with a chance to perform some work, mostly likely in partnership with Japan, Germany, France or Sweden.

Late on Tuesday Mr Andrews issued a statement to say that the “competitive evaluation” process was used by Labor and was the same one used since the 2003 reforms to Defence procurement.

The Parliament’s recent shipbuilding inquiry heard from a range of experts that the best result for the $20 billion to $40 billion project would be through a competitive tender.

South Australian Senator Sean Edwards, who chaired that inquiry, said his support for the embattled Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Monday’s leadership spill motion was contingent on getting an open tender, which would include an ASC bid.

He said Mr Abbott called him on Sunday, on the eve of the leadership spill, and promised there would be an open tender. The Government has not ruled out Mr Abbott used that word.

“I’m not going to get into all sorts of definitions and what’s a definition and what that is,” Mr Andrews said on Tuesday.

Senator Edwards said he was happy with the competitive evaluation process as it was “all the same” and that “tender” was the word used in all the hearings. He then bewildered many by saying you “never get a second chance to ask your uncle to a wedding”.

Other MPs may have been swayed by the tender announcement to vote against the spill motion rather than in favour of toppling Mr Abbott.

Five SA Coalition MPs flew with Mr Andrews, missing a crucial partyroom meeting as the Government dealt with the fallout from the failed leadership spill.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/defence-minister-kevin-andrews-leads-coalition-de...