By Marcus Hellyer*
In the first part of this series, we saw that by late 2015, before the Defence Department had received industry responses in the competitive evaluation process for selecting the designer and builder of the future submarines, its cost estimate for the program was $50 billion ‘outturned’.
A defence white paper and supporting investment program were released on 25 February 2016. By that time, Defence had had industry responses to the competitive evaluation tender for nearly three months, so it would have had time to adjust the $50 billion figure if it had been incorrect.
