Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on the planned acquisition of the Joint Strike Fighter, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I am pleased to table this report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee into the planned acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. Government, opposition, Australian Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team senators worked cooperatively during this inquiry, and I am pleased that the majority report recommendations have the support both of the government and the opposition.

The committee is satisfied that the F-35A is the only aircraft able to meet Australia's strategic needs for the foreseeable future, and that sufficient progress is being made in the test-and-evaluation program to address performance issues of concern. However, the committee is not convinced that any of the available alternative aircraft raised in evidence are capable of meeting Australia's air defence needs.

Nonetheless, in light of the serious problems that have led to the re-baselining of the F-35 program in 2012 and the ongoing issues identified by the United States Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, the committee retains a healthy scepticism towards assurances by Defence regarding cost, schedule and capability outcomes for the F-35.

The report makes three key recommendations for Defence and the government, focusing on: (1) the development of a hedging strategy to address the risk of a capability gap resulting from further delays in the acquisition of the F-35A; (2) the development of a sovereign industrial capability strategy for the F-35A to ensure that Australian aircraft can be maintained and supported without undue reliance on other nations; and (3) the establishment of Australia as the Asia-Pacific maintenance and sustainment hub for the F-35.

There have been significant changes to the acquisition schedule over the life of the F-35 program, including the recent re-baselining in 2012 and the limited scope and considerable cost to further extend the life of the Classic Hornet fleet. The committee therefore considers it prudent for Defence to develop a hedging strategy to mitigate the risk of a capability gap resulting from further delays.

The support solution for sustainment is still under development. However, the F-35's reliance on mission data loads produced by the US Reprogramming Laboratory, together with the Autonomic Logistics Information System and the global support model could impact on Australia's sovereign ability to make decisions around how, when and where we deploy capability.

The potential for other nations to be prioritised over Australia for the provision of repair parts and for the development of software—for example, mission data files and electronic warfare—may negatively impact on Australia's capability. A balance must be found between the benefits of the global support solution and preserving an acceptable level of sovereignty regarding the maintenance of Australia's capability. As such, the committee strongly supports Defence's efforts to develop mission data reprogramming capabilities in Australia. Further, the committee encourages efforts to establish Australia as the F-35 Asia-Pacific maintenance and sustainment hub. This would have the dual benefit of increasing Australian industry participation in the F-35 global support solution as well as developing in-country maintenance and support capabilities.

The F-35 program has had a positive impact on Australian industry and indeed the Australian economy. As a result of being able to compete for business in global F-35 program supply chains, and with the support of government programs, Australian companies have won a number of significant contracts and secured over US$554 million worth of design and production work. This figure is expected to increase significantly over the life of the program as it matures, resulting in rising production volumes and future sustainment opportunities.

Australian industry submitters and witnesses told the committee they have received a range of benefits from their involvement in the F-35 program, including: capability and network development; job creation; long-term investment; increased skills and experience; and opportunities for future work. The committee was pleased to hear that the F-35 program has delivered considerable employment opportunities to Australian industry as well as helping to offset declining employment rates—in particular, in the automotive manufacturing industry—by engaging a large number of people out of its engineering and manufacturing workforce.

Throughout the inquiry, the committee received evidence criticising the F-35A and raising concerns regarding the aircraft's performance in testing and subsequent delays in acquisition time lines. Submitters and witnesses raised concerns regarding the F-35's manoeuvrability and flight capabilities, stealth capabilities, mission systems, mission data loads, Autonomic Logistics Information System and escape system. Many submitters called for the aircraft's procurement to be cancelled. It is difficult to accurately understand and critique the capabilities of the F-35 without access to detailed classified performance data. As such, the committee does not draw definitive conclusions regarding the details of the aircraft's performance in testing in its report. For the same reason, the committee is sceptical of the accuracy of analysis and conclusions calling into question the suitability of the F-35A—noting that these submitters do not have access to the classified information necessary to accurately assess the capability of the F-35A, nor do they have access to classified information regarding current generation Russian and Chinese developmental aircraft.

However, even if the submitters' data and conclusions were beyond doubt, the majority of submissions which argued against the procurement of the F-35A asserted that Australia's only alternative is to acquire the F-22 Raptor. As this aircraft is not in production, is unlikely to ever be reinstated to production and its sale to any foreign government remains prohibited by the United States congress, the committee is unconvinced that the F-22 is a realistic alternative to the F-35A. Furthermore, the evidence was not able to demonstrate that alternative aircraft such as the JAS-39E Gripen, the Eurofighter Typhoon or the Dassault Rafale would be better able to meet all of Australia's requirements.

The committee therefore concludes that the F-35A remains the only currently viable aircraft that is capable of meeting Australia's near term strategic needs and, as such, should be a key element of Australia's air combat capability. I commend the report to the Senate.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few remarks to support the chair of the references committee, Senator Gallacher. I too confer that, certainly in the short to medium term, the joint strike fighter, the F-35A is an aircraft that Australia should be investing in. There is nothing that appears to be on the market or available to Western nations in the near to medium term that will provide the capabilities this aircraft is promising to offer. That does not mean in my mind that we should not have a healthy degree of scepticism about promises made, particularly in the medium to longer term, about its ability to continue to defeat threats in our region. I note that those threats will continue to evolve, particularly as other nations who may be peer competitors in an air combat space develop their ability to very precisely target the characteristics of the aircraft that are marketed as being its key strength—that being stealth—and also its ability to assimilate and disseminate significant amounts of data to increase the situational awareness of the entire combat packet, which is undoubtedly a force enabler but also introduces significant failure modes in the whole system.

I maintain the position I have had for some time—that, while Australia should continue its involvement in this program, we should not be aiming for a situation where we have an air combat capability which is completely reliant on the one aircraft type. At the moment, we have the Super Hornet and the Growler, which is planned to be held as a second platform type. I believe that into the future Australia should maintain a multiplatform fleet to provide some redundancy, some options, because, as we have seen with this aircraft as it goes through what is still a developmental phase, there have been single-point failures where the entire fleet has been grounded because of one issue.

Australia needs to maintain its options, in particular around the sovereign capability to do design support and engineering work. Clearly, we will never build the entire aircraft here, but we need to retain the capability in our engineering workforce to understand issues such as fatigue and how to do appropriate risk assessment. If there is a repair scheme, a software update or some other element of the technical airworthiness of the aircraft that the OEM or, indeed, the global support network for the aircraft cannot supply, either in the time frame that we need or with the priority effort to areas that are important to us, then we need to be able to make informed, risk based decisions for the Air Commander as to whether or not he can continue to deploy that platform in combat operations.

That takes me in part to the Defence Industry Policy Statementand how it should apply to something like the Joint Strike Fighter platform. I think Air Force and Defence are wisely embedding both civilian and uniformed engineers into organisations such as the joint program office in the States, but I make the point that, as we have more and more aircraft in our fleet which are reliant on a design support network overseas, we will not have the breadth of positions to take young graduates from university and give them the hands-on training needed to take them from a qualified person to a competent person in the field who can do those engineering activities. If we aim to be a smart customer and a smart operator of the Joint Strike Fighter into the coming decades then we need to make sure that we not only procure the aircraft but provide the training opportunities for young engineers to become competent in the role. We will never find enough places to embed people in either the United States air force or with the OEM, so we need to find other possibilities for that.

That brings me back again to the Defence Industry Policy Statement. If we accept the fact that air combat capability has a fundamental input to it, which is design engineering, then rather than looking at this program in isolation and looking at other programs—for example, something like the replacement for the training aircraft, the PC-9, in isolation—Defence has the opportunity, in fact the obligation, to look at that fundamental input to capability from a programmatic perspective. It should say, 'If we do not have enough places within the Joint Strike Fighter program to provide this training and development of competence for our young engineers then there is no logical reason, in terms of combat capability, with something like the PC-9 replacement for us not to hold a systems program office or do that engineering effort.' The rationalist approach to procuring that aircraft would be: let the OEM or another contractor do it by power by the hour for the aircraft, rather than doing it from an Australian sovereign perspective.

But if we take the programmatic perspective, perhaps this is actually the lowest cost and most effective way to provide training opportunities for young engineers, who can develop an understanding of structures, power plants, engines, airframes, avionics and systems which they can then transfer into our combat capability such as the Joint Strike Fighter. That is the kind of opportunity that the Defence Industry Policy Statement provides, and I would certainly encourage Defence, as they look to making sure that we have the sovereign ability to operate this aircraft into the future, to take the opportunities to grow that workforce.

My final comments are on the test and evaluation for this platform. My background is as an experimental test pilot in the military and I am aware that many people fall victim to the conspiracy of optimism. If there were one program in recent military aviation history that has had many people fall victim to a conspiracy of optimism it would be the Joint Strike Fighter program. Too much reliance has been placed on modelling, computer simulations, glossy brochures, marketing programs and unrealistic expectations and not enough focus has been placed on engagement in test and evaluation. I am pleased to see that there has been an increased focus on test and evaluation but I maintain the position, which I have put to Defence on many occasions, that Australia needs to invest more in the people we have engaged, not only in operational test and evaluation as the aircraft starts to be fielded but in making sure we have engineers and aircrew who are involved in the development and certification flight test activities. That is where we will develop the necessary deep understanding of any flaws, failures, weaknesses or strengths in the system. We can then adapt that understanding to our doctrine, procedures and tactics so that we can exploit the capabilities and compensate for any deficiencies in the system to maximum effect.

The US Office of the DOT&E has highlighted a number of areas where there are ongoing concerns with the rate of progress through the T&E program. When I hear people talking about thinning out the number of test points in order to meet schedule, my background means I become nervous about the quality of the final clearances that are achieved. Again, I would encourage Defence to make strategic and investments into test and evaluation so that we are not just a receiver of what another country wishes to give us but active participants gaining information and access to raw data so that we can make our own analysis of what it is telling us about the capabilities of the platform.

I commend the report to the Senate. The program is something we should continue with. It is, for the short to medium term, the most likely aircraft to meet our air combat capability needs. But I would make those three points again: we should expect to need a multiplatform fleet into the future; we should expect that the threats in our region and beyond will evolve and that the core characteristic of this platform may no longer, in the medium to long term, be the bulwark that it currently is advertised to be against emerging threats; and that we need to use the opportunities presented by the Defence Industry Policy Statement to develop sovereign capability, both in our industry and among our uniformed and civilian defence personnel, in particular in the design support and engineering network, to assure the continuing airworthiness and combat capability of this platform into the future.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.