‘Pretty significant’ day for Navy due to cost blowouts in building frigates

ANU National Security College’s Jennifer Parker says it’s been a “pretty significant” day for the Navy due to cost blowouts in building frigates reaching almost $20 billion. Ms Parker joined Sky News Australia to discuss the latest cost blowouts for Australia’s defence. “So what we get for it is the largest surface combatant fleet consisting of eight ANZAC-class frigates which are ageing and three Hobart-class air warfare destroyers,” she said. “Now the ANZAC class were meant to replace by the Hunter-class frigate announced in 2018 – nine of those. “Today’s announced that the Hunter-class frigate program which has had a number of troubles will be reduced from nine to six, and we will actually get 11 general-purpose frigates.”