Page 71 - Australian Defence Magazine April-May 2021
P. 71

                    APRIL-MAY 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
FROM THE SOURCE   VICE ADMIRAL MICHAEL NOONAN 71
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Defence has an existing contracted submarine escape and rescue service provider that is certified to provide the services for all likely scenarios and operational areas under which submarine rescue would be performed.
The full capability of the replacement submarine rescue system is not critical until commencement of sea trials for the Attack class submarines from 2030.
James Fisher Defence Australia continues to provide sub- marine rescue services under an existing contract, which can be extended. I do remain very confident that we will have a capability in place that will support the Attack class submarine when she commences trials in early 2030s.
I remain very confident that our submarines are well supported in terms of their escape and rescue capabili- ties. The contract that we’ve got in place with JFD meets the requirements that we currently have and, in addition, we’ve obviously got a very strong and connected inter- national framework with our coalition partners around submarines’ escape and rescue, which we do and can le- ver off if there is a requirement and we exercise that on a regular basis.
ADM: And what about the certification issue post-2024? NOONAN: Post-2024 we have got an annual testing and cer- tification regime in place through Navy and if there is a requirement to extend the contract beyond 2024, I’m con- fident that we’ll be able to continue a certification regime.
ADM: Do you think there’s more effort required for the Future Submarine program to win the understanding and backing of the wider Australian community? I think there’s a perception that they see the headline figures and wince, added to the fact that most public comments are not seen positively.
NOONAN: It is very important that the community under- stands the importance of Australia’s submarine capability. Those of us in Defence and those of us in defence indus- try would probably find ourselves talking about submarines very regularly, if not every day, as is my case. I’m in no doubt that the government is absolutely clear on the im- portance of Australia’s submarine capability and certainly we see it through our ministers as they talk about it often, they promote the capability often. And certainly in terms of Australian defence industry, it’s very clear to me that they’re absolutely behind it.
Yes, the program, the current Collins program, the future Attack program, they are expensive but they are unique capabilities that absolutely provide a backbone to our national security requirements that can’t be replaced by any other capability.
ADM: A recent Senate Estimates session heard that Navy is having trouble crewing their surface fleet, the Anzacs in particular. How is the Navy training and retention pipe- line coping with the biggest recapitalisation of the fleet in a generation?
ABOVE: Paul Piercy from James Fisher Defence, conducts post operation checks on the embarked remotely operated vehicle onboard MV Besant during Exercise Black Carillion last year.
NOONAN: I’m very focused and passionate about our people and our workforce and I did enjoy addressing that question from Senator Kitching at the last Senate Estimates. In terms of the total picture, I was able to provide clear evidence to the Committee that Navy is doing well in terms of grow- ing our workforce, retaining our workforce and ultimately recruiting the workforce of the future. There has been no doubt that we’ve been in a period of long-term workforce hollowness and that has obviously been evidenced through the past crewing of the Anzac frigates, HMAS Perth. I don’t make any secret of the fact that HMAS Perth has been out of the water for over three years now. The initial decision to reduce our activity was based on crewing. The crewing equation has improved significantly since we took that deci- sion. Perth is now in the AMCAP program, so she’s going through a period of upgrade in any case. When she comes back, she’ll be fully crewed.
But in terms of the overall Navy workforce, we’ve seen very positive and steady growth consistently over the last three years. We’re currently at around about 15,500 head- count, which is the largest the Navy has been in the last 27 years. Our separation rate is just below seven per cent, the lowest separation rate that we’ve seen in the Navy ever.
Recruiting, both pre-COVID and during last year through until now is very high; we’re in the 98/99 percentile of re- cruiting targets and we have very deliberately refocused our recruiting requirements to the future fleet requirements. It’s acknowledged within the Department and by govern- ment that the Navy needs to continue to grow to be able to realise the future capabilities that we’ll see into the next 10 plus years.The DCAP (the Defence Capability Assessment Program) 2020 to 2022, which will go forward later this
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