The Osbourne Yard to be upgraded for $30 Billion

How many subs would $A 30 Billion buy?

Albo has just announced Australia will spend a staggering $30 Billion building a dockyard for the AUKUS submarines that will not arrive until the 2040’s – if ever.

For this amount of money Australia could buy a whole fleet of advanced non-nuclear submarines.

Submarine ClassCost USD ($M)Cost AUD ($M)Boats for $B 30Notes
212CD (Germany)1070149820Includes support.
Taigei (Japan)48567944Unit price only
KSSIII (ROK)9001260236 to 10 VLS
Scorpene (France)1300182016
Assumes exchange rate of 1.4 AUD for 1 USD. Boat prices above are far from “like-for-like”. Defence contracts are complex and may include local customisation, skills transfer and other factors.

This is typical of the kind of wasteful defence spending that does nothing to actually defend Australia that has been persued relentlessly for decades by both major parties.