The 2026 ADM South Australia Defence Summit, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on 7 July, underscored the state\u2019s involvement in the creation of a sovereign naval shipbuilding and sustainment capability.<\/p>\n
In his ministerial address at the opening of the event, SA\u2019s Minister for Defence and Space Industries noted that Adelaide is currently home to the Hunter Class Frigate build program, the Hobart-class Destroyer Capability Enhancement Program, the Collins-class submarine Life of Type Extension (LOTE) program and is also the city where Australia\u2019s SSN-AUKUS submarines will be built.<\/p>\n
The Australian Submarine Agency\u2019s (ASA) Deputy Director General for nuclear submarines, David Johnson, noted that the SSN-AUKUS capability \u2013 along with the interim Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines \u2013 will form the basis of Australia\u2019s strategy of denial in future years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia must build and undersea warfare capability that is able to work at long distances and is enduring,\u201d he told delegates. \u201cWorking in partnerships is essential, it is a whole of nation effort,\u201d adding that in the meantime, the Collins LOTE program will be essential to ensuring a viable undersea capability.<\/p>\n
Johnson noted that Australia is starting at a \u201czero base\u201d on its journey towards nuclear stewardship and provided details of progress made to date, including around 500 people currently working on the design and development of a facility at Osborne, which will not only build SSN-AUKUS, but be instrumental in sustaining it through its service life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will need to be capable of multi-class sustainment \u2013 Collins, Virginia, and SSN-AUKUS,\u201d he told delegates. \u201cA great deal of effort needs to go into the planning for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hobart DECP is being undertaken within BAE Systems Australia\u2019s facility at Osborne and, as the Navy\u2019s Surface Project Director Captain Dane Wilson, explained, the work is more akin to a spiral capability upgrade than a traditional Mid-Life Upgrade (MLU) activity.<\/p>\n
The program will add new weapons capability in the shape of Tomahawk, Naval Strike Missile (NSM) and a pathway to the SM-6 missile, as well as significant upgrades to the Hobart\u2019s Aegis combat system, platform updates, comms and EW enhancements and sustainment improvements.<\/p>\n
CAPT Wilson said that work on the first ship is progressing well and is expected to be back in the water around the end of the year, with test and evaluation activities to occur over the following 12 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we cannot defence the force, we cannot protect the force,\u201d he said when describing the importance of the DCEP to delegates. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Commodore Scott Lockey, Director General of the Hunter Class Frigate Program provided a rare update of progress to date, beginning with an explanation of why Australia is spending so much money on the maritime domain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese investments support efforts to increase Australia\u2019s self-reliance and strengthen the resilience of Australia\u2019s sovereign defence industrial base,\u201d he noted. \u201c41 per cent of our Integrated Investment Plan investment is attributed to the maritime domain (and) the IIP details that $17 billion of expenditure has been approved for Hunter across the decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
CDRE Lockey emphasised that investment in the Hunter-class program isn\u2019t solely about building six anti-submarine warfare frigates for the Navy, but it is also an investment in the sovereign naval shipbuilding enterprise.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, he said that the program is on track for a keel-laying ceremony at the end of August.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe HCF program is making great progress. The first ship is starting to take shape,\u201d he concluded. \u201cAll our major suppliers are on contract, and we are building a skilled workforce across a range of trades and engineering disciplines to generate a sovereign shipbuilding industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
An in-depth report on the 2026 South Australia Defence Summit will appear in the September\/October issue of ADM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 ADM South Australia Defence Summit, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on 7 July, underscored the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-784238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}