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. All for the princely sum of $46.5m! He also recommended the fleet be increase proportionally with the increase in population.

114 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 thinks so.

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

Admiral Henderson proposed a fleet of 4 armoured cruisers, and 5 protected cruisers to the submarine 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 northeastern seaboard should extend to our south Pacific neighbouring countries 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. Gillard in 2013 slashed the Defence budget and Albanese despite promising 12 new ships upon his election 3 years ago was caught out again in yet another lie. But hey, be fair, he did assemble a study team!

Using an advantageous acquisition strategy, sensible Governments have their Defence fleet capability significantly enhanced by "dormant charters" of commercial vessels.

Dormant charters are pre-signed at an agreed rate, so that in the event of conflict or emergency response, the vessel comes under Naval 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 liners, roro 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 50-90 metres. Smart experienced people with "war wounds" suggest their governments should incentivise operators to ensure that all new coastal vessels have:-

An extra 6 x 2 berth cabins for military personnel

Extra dry and reefer stores

1 separate communications centre

Helipad with manned drone capability

Beach landing capability and axle loadings for Himars and heavy fuel trucks, bulldozers and emergency response equipment.

These dormant charters could easily be incentivised by the government providing the loan guarantee and the capital cost of the extra requirements. Treasury would easily ascertain that this is a very economic way to boost border protection capability and active training facilities.

Most 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 Navy would envy. The helipad is an ideal aviation training platform for helicopter and manned 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.

The ability to provide shore power to first responders is another key requirement.

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 naval vessel acquisition process.

Coupled with the Dormant charter proposal, cyclone proof Mini Ports capable of handling 2 x 95 meter 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 2 world wars).

Around northern Australia all the way between Brisbane and Geraldton, stifled by decades of Green ideology and EPA laws of national parks and fish habitats blanketing our coast, we have ports only every 700 kms! Check for yourself, it is a disgrace!

ALP's Premier Palusczuk passed a 620 page "Sustainable Ports Act" immediately she was elected in 2015, in an appeasement to the Greens, to stop any port development in Queensland.

Crisafulli hasn't shown the same urgency in repealing this nonsense and watches bus and truck crashes on the Bruce highway killing Queenslanders with monotonous regularity. Team Crisafulli ignores the last 8 bipartisan State shipping studies that have been done over the last 30 years 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!

Logistically a highly mobilised fleet capable of accessing all small ports and unprepared beaches, improves the frontline options for emergency response, border protection and defence as a whole.

Can someone with the vision of Admiral Henderson and a bit of spine make a simple thing like this happen in any nation, big or small, in the north of Australia and the South West Pacific?