Dr Marcus Helluyer*
The government’s Naval Shipbuilding Plan (NSP) was released three years ago in May 2017. It laid out how the government would deliver on its commitment to build a sustainable, continuous naval shipbuilding capability. Since then Defence and its industry partners have made considerable progress in establishing the key planks of the plan. Meanwhile media and parliamentary attention has focused on and argued over numbers—of ships being built, of jobs being created, of dollars being spent, of percentages of content going to local industry. The government also has repeatedly emphasised particular numbers. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture and what the NSP was really trying to achieve.
This article was first published in the Australian Naval Review, 2020, Issue 1, in June 2020.
