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Director-general for the multibillion-dollar and contentious Hunter Class frigate program, Commodore Scott Lockey has hit back at mounting media criticism about the program.
Australia’s Hunter Class frigate program has come under renewed fire after Norway secured a deal to buy new British-designed warships for less than half the price Australia is paying, following a recent piece by The Australian’s Ben Packham.
Norway will purchase five Type-26 anti-submarine frigates for about AU$20 billion or roughly AU$4 billion each, with the first ship, HMAS Hunter, to be delivered by BAE Systems in 2030.
Packham highlighted by contrast, Australia’s Hunter Class version, based on the same Type 26 design but heavily modified, will cost about AU$9 billion per ship.
Speaking to Michael Shoebridge, director of Strategic Analysis Australia, Packham quoted Shoebridge, who said, “Norwegians are clearly getting better value than us. They must be better negotiators, although it’s still an exorbitantly expensive vessel even at the price they’re paying.”
The disparity highlights what critics see as a “botched” procurement process. The Turnbull government selected BAE Systems in 2018 to design and build nine Hunters in Adelaide, despite an auditor-general’s report finding the tender failed to assess value for money.
Originally priced at AU$35 billion, the program has since been scaled back to six ships after the 2024 review, with the first three now expected to cost AU$27 billion and enter service only around 2034.
The Hunter has diverged significantly from the original Type 26 design, incorporating an Australian-developed CEA radar and the Lockheed Martin Aegis Combat System. These changes pushed up costs, delayed the schedule and strained the vessels’ design margins.
As a result of delays, the Albanese government has had to order 11 Japanese-built Mogami Class frigates, with the first to arrive before the end of the decade. Japan has previously built an earlier version of the Mogami for just AU$750 million a ship, while the US is producing its Constellation Class frigates for about $1.8 billion each.
So far, Australia has already spent AU$5.7 billion on the Hunter project, even though construction only began in earnest a year ago. Shoebridge argued the government should cut its losses and abandon the British ships altogether, instead relying on the Mogami fleet.
Others, however, see enduring value in the program.
Jennifer Parker, a former anti-submarine warfare officer on Britain’s Type 23 frigates and now an associate at the National Security College, said: “I don’t hate it like everyone else. Hunter has had a lot of issues but I do think it gets a bad rap in terms of cost.”
She stressed that the price tag also reflects the investment in a new Adelaide shipyard, a skilled workforce and a local supply chain. In her view, the Hunter will be a more capable anti-submarine platform than the Mogami, thanks to advanced sound-dampening technology built into its design.
Entering the fray is Commodore Scott Lockey, Director-General of the Hunter Class Frigate (HCF) program in a post on LinkedIn in which he sought to set the record straight.
CDRE Lockey began his rebuttal, saying, “About a year ago I posted about the how ambitious the HCF program is, and how descriptors such as ‘troubled’ and ‘controversial’ are damaging our ability to attract and retain the high-quality people we need to deliver a sovereign ship building capability. Today the ‘troubled’ descriptor was used again without any evidence of what is troubling.”
One of the frequently cited criticisms of the program is the costs associated, particularly when compared to the costs revealed as part of the Norwegian deal, CDRE Lockey pushed back on this criticism, adding, “I would like to pose a few questions for you to ponder. Would a troubled program, which has 140+ national and international suppliers on contract, achieve a financial year outcome within 0.06 per cent of budget?
To be fair, a big portion of the budget has already been spent on the extensive shipbuilding infrastructure that has been developed at the Osborne precinct and which will no doubt become a critical piece of national infrastructure and will no doubt pay for itself many times over.
Lockey added, “Would a troubled program have achieved 19 of 20 major milestones since July 2022 on or ahead of schedule? Would a troubled program have half of the first ship in production 14 months after cutting steel? I hope that your answers reflect the current reality – this is not a troubled program. Sure, there are challenges every day, but they are all being managed by a professional, loyal and committed team.”
As part of his rebuttal, CDRE Lockey also reinforced the decisions made by the previous government and Navy’s advice regarding the pursuit of a “superior” anti-submarine platform in the Hunter Class were validated by the Norwegian decision to acquire their own fleet of Type 26 anti-submarine frigates.
Lockey added this analysis, saying, “I also offer this observation. The decision by the Norwegian government to select the Type 26, which is the reference ship design for the Hunter Class frigate, as their next anti-submarine warfare (ASW) frigate, is a vote of confidence in the decision that Australia made back in 2018.”
Seeking to further strengthen the counter-argument, CDRE Lockey stressed the importance and capability set to be delivered by the integration of the CEA radar system, Aegis combat system and the Saab 9LV combat system interface, which will provide the Hunter Class frigate, and the “multi-purpose” role given the relatively “small” size of the Royal Australian Navy.
CDRE Lockey said, “In the case of the Hunter Class frigate, the Australian designed and developed CEA radar, combined with the Aegis combat management system and a Saab Australia developed interface, will deliver capabilities that extend well beyond ASW. As an island nation with a relatively small Navy, having an ASW frigate with multi-role capabilities is essential. Our nation should be proud of the sovereign capabilities that we are incorporating into the Hunter Class frigate to supplement the ASW capabilities delivered by the reference ship.”
However, one of the key, yet unmentioned points, is no doubt the focus of much of the concerns regarding the value-for-money proposition of the ships themselves and the capability they will bring to the Royal Australian Navy, which isn’t mentioned by Packham, Parker or CDR Lockey, is the payload capacity of the vessels.
Uh oh, yes, I went there, that perennial concern about the weapons capacity of the Hunter Class frigates is fundamentally at the core of the concerns and still remains inadequately addressed by all parties (with the potential exception of BAE Systems Australia which has released “up-gunned” variants).
This is where the trouble lies – it is an inescapable reality that the Royal Australian Navy will need robust, resilient and survivable platforms to secure our interests, and magazine capacity, combined with sensor suite, range and speed are essential to that.
It is my firm belief that central to all of the public concerns is the common sense recognition that a 10,000-tonne “frigate” with a paltry magazine of 32-cell vertical launch system, along with eight Naval Strike Missiles, a close-in-weapons system and a Mk 45 5-inch naval gun is clearly not a credible deterrent nor survivable in the age of peer competitor conflict, even when part of a larger allied naval task group.
This reality is only more relevant when one considers that the Hunters, by CDRE Lockey’s own admission, will also be required to fulfil “multi-mission” roles, including, according to the Navy’s own website, air defence, strike and surface warfare.
We all want to be on the side of Navy and industry; we just want to make sure that we are getting the best value for money and most capable warships Australian taxpayers’ money can possibly buy.
So can we please get serious and have an honest conversation?
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
