AUSTRALIAN NAVAL REVIEW 2016 Australian Naval Review 2016 AUSTRALIAN NAVAL REVIEW 2016 Issue 1 Contents Page Foreword by the President 3 2016 Vernon Parker Oration 5 by the Honourable Kim Beazley AC Maritime Operations in the Littoral - The Minister's Perspective 19 by Senator the Honourable Marise Payne, Minister for Defence Percival Edwin McNeil - Pioneering Naval Shipbuilder 27 by Commander Greg Swinden, RAN Australia’s naval shipbuilding plans: guided by strategy or industry? 39 by Dr Andrew Davies Raid on Goodenough Island: Australia’s First Amphibious Operation 53 in the Second World War by Associate Professor Peter Dean www.navalinstitute.com.au 1 Australian Naval Review 2016 Australian Naval Review Chair of ANR Committee: Commodore Lee Goddard Editor: Kiri Mathieson Formatting & typesetting: Peter Jones Australian Naval Review Advisory Committee Professor Tom Frame (Chair) Dr Stephan Freuhling Dr Tom Lewis OAM Commodore Richard Menhinick AM CSC RANR Dr John Reeve Dr David SteYHQs To contact the Australian Naval Review: [email protected] Printed by Instant Colour Press, Canberra Set in Georgia Regular 11 IS6N 2207-2128 (hard copy) Front Cover: A Chinook (CH-47F) conducting first of class flight trials in HMAS Adelaide off Tasmanian waters. (RAN). Rear Inside Cover: HMA Ships Ballarat and Yarra (RAN). Copyright of the articles published in the Australian Naval Review resides with the authors. 2 Australian Naval Review 2016 Foreword by the President An enduring characteristic of the Australian Naval Institute during its 41 year existence has been a desire to regularly reshape the organization to ensure its relevance to its members and the broader Australian maritime community. It is only through such efforts that it can continue to be a forum for the discussion of naval and maritime matters. In recent years the Australian Naval Institute ceased production of its quarterly Headmark journal and focused considerable attention on its web page and associated social media. As a result our members, as well as over 1,000 subscribers, now regularly access the Institute's website to keep abreast of maritime developments in Australia and our region. The Australian Naval Institute recognised however the need for a high quality peer reviewed publication to discuss in a reflective and at times provocative manner naval and maritime topics. That is the origin of the Australian Naval Review. In the inaugural edition will be found a wide spectrum of articles with the Vernon Parker Oration taking pride of place. I trust you enjoy the inaugural edition of the Australian Naval Review. Vice Admiral Peter Jones, AO DSC RAN (Retired) President Australian Naval Institute 15 December 2016 3 Australian Naval Review 2016 ANI Objectives The ANI was formed and incorporated in the ACT in 1975 as a self-supporting and non-profit making organisation to provide a forum for naval officers and others interested in maritime affairs. The main objectives of the Institute are: • to encourage and promote the advancement of knowledge related to the Navy and the maritime profession; and • to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas concerning subjects related to the Navy and the maritime profession. The ANI achieves these goals through: • The Vernon Parker Oration and dinner, • The Goldrick Seminar which each year focuses on a different aspect of naval affairs, • Striving to be the leading website and email service on Australian and regional naval and maritime developments, • Publishing the Australian Naval Review, • Holding Maritime Events at a Fleet Base of HMAS Albatross to promote engagement with the Fleet; and • The presentation of Prizes and awards to promote excellence. Join the ANI Your membership helps support the ANI in realizing its objectives. Members receive: • discounts on ANI events, • the Australian Naval Review, • access to the ANI website, and • discounted access to the on-line version of the US Naval Institute Proceedings. www.navalinstitute.com.au 4 Australian Naval Review 2016 2016 Vernon Parker Oration by The Honourable Kim Beazley, AC The premier event in the Australian Naval Institute is the Vernon Parker Oration. Named in honour of the inaugural President of the Institute, the Oration is delivered by a distinguished leader on naval, maritime or strategic affairs. This year the Lockheed Martin Vernon Parker Oration and Annual Dinner was held on 22 June at Hotel Realm in Canberra. The ANI was delighted that Kim Beazley could, for the third time, deliver a Vernon Parker Oration. He gave his Oration to a capacity audience. It's really a privilege to be here with all of you. You know my views about what's important in political debates and how nations form opinions, what becomes salient opinion. What is important for me has changed a lot since I have been in the United States and seen a different society operate. It’s led me to be far more respectful of and concerned for the wellbeing of those in our society who take defence seriously—which you do. And all of you have got different sorts of jobs, different sorts of roles in this community, some directly in command roles, like the Chief, and in roles that are associated with the civilian side. Defence roles in protecting the reputation and the history, roles in defending the status of the system and roles in its history, there's a whole range of roles that are performed by you all of which add up to a collective memory 5 Australian Naval Review 2016 and a collective forward view about what ought to be the nature, the character of our society as far as defence matters are concerned. We are at a crisis point but we sit in it like the proverbial frog in boiling water. We do not recognise it. We have a hybrid American taxation system, we have a hybrid European social security system and we have a substantial defence problem that emanates from our distance from allies and the changing regional distribution of power. This does not cohere. This is not sustainable. And choices are going to be made around this White Paper, are going to be made around industry, which are going to lend veracity to the view that I have always thought and that is the White Paper whenever it is produced does not end debate—it merely starts it. There is going to be an awful lot of water flow under the bridge for decisions taken to this point. I'm not going to talk about the Navy today. I'm going to talk about American politics and the potential impact on our relationships and various outcomes that might occur in the presidential election later this year. I am very pleased to see the fact that we've come full circle in the White Paper and returned at least in the area of industry policy to the old strategy of self-reliance. The industry policy and the associated measures by the Government, both in terms of ensuring it works and that it is technologicallyexcellent, are to be very much welcomed. However, one has the sneaking suspicion that for the folk involved at the start in writing that paper, that policy was not there and the policy subsequently appeared. The policy that subsequently appeared was a product of a political revolt and decisions that were taken subsequent to that, shifted us abruptly away from a course that we'd been pursuing, not with evil intent in any shape or form, but with less and less thought given if you like to questions of the sustainment of Australian industry, more and more to costs, putting pressure on the system to enable equipment to be bought elsewhere even if they had to be sustained here. We have slammed what was prevailing industry policy into reverse. That is going to create major challenges for the people who manage these programs, particularly if some of the political pressure points diminish, but it is the right policy. It needs to be broadened. Self-reliance is not just simply industrypolicy, it's about appreciating the total capacity of your population. We used to in the 1980s talk about mobilisation, incorporating all our national assets, civil as well as military. We are a maritime nation and we are focused properly here on the Naval component of it, but it has a civilian component as well. The Americans think much better about that. We complain about the Jones Act and all the other things that are associated with it and the way the Americans operate their coastal shipping services. The Americans very consciously want to sustain a major marine capability. They take seriously the civilian component that is sustained by a healthy merchant marine around their coastline and further afield. 6 Australian Naval Review 2016 We view our merchant marine more in the context of struggle with the MUA and not in the context of what the nation really truly needs. That should change. We're a good nation often ruined by politics. But politics at least produced something of a reasonable outcome here. That's all I want to say in that area and I want to move over to something else, but as I do start the talk about the US, the most critical thing happening for us in the US at the moment, aside from whether or not we have an isolationist as President, which is a very big aside from, is the oddly named Third Offset Strategy—but it is critical. This is the direction in which the Americans are going to go as they try to find an affordable solution and effective solution to asymmetrical strategies which bedevil them around the oceans littoral and threaten their capacity to deploy for defensive objectives they consider important.