Defence money thrown away again?

November 7, 2025

I note that according to the mainstream media, Defence Minister Marles first heard of the plan to build nuclear submarines for Korea in the US through the media. But what is of particular interest today in the submarine space is the news that retiring Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead headed a secret nuclear submarine taskforce from February 2021 onwards, that is seven months before France was blindsided.

Presumably, in that seven months, we still had people beavering away with Naval Group on advanced design work and letting contracts for the French non-nuclear boat. The French, for their part, were busy lining up as much supply chain work as they could with Australian companies.

So how much did that seven months of wasted work cost us Australian taxpayers, and how many Australian companies had their time and money wasted looking at contracts for the French submarine work? All of this under Peter Dutton, who in late August that year told us from Paris that the collaboration on the submarine with the French was on track.