The claim
Defence Minister Richard Marles attacked the Coalition in Question Time yesterday, blaming the previous government for the state in which it left the navy.
“When the Albanese government came to power, we inherited from the Liberals the oldest surface fleet that the Royal Australian Navy had operated since the end of the Second World War,” he said.
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Mr Marles made similar comments upon the release of Australia’s 2024 National Defence Strategy in April, during an interview with Channel Seven’s Sunrise program.
Asked if he accepted that “both sides of politics should be judged harshly here”, the deputy prime minister responded:
“Well, I think we certainly have a lot of challenges. I mean what we’ve inherited as a government was the oldest surface fleet for our navy that has been operating since the end of the Second World War.”
“That’s what the Coalition did,” he added.
Was the Coalition responsible for leaving the government with the oldest surface fleet since World War II? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
The verdict
Mr Marles’s claim is not watertight.
Data from the Royal Australian Navy website, supplemented by other historical publications, shows there have been periods since the Second World War when the average age of the surface fleet was older than that recorded at the 2022 election.
This applies to the surface fleet whether defined narrowly as major surface combatants only or defined broadly using a wider definition adopted by the US Navy.
However, it’s important to note that there may be other valid methodologies available to the navy which are not publicly available. Nonetheless, the data shows there are holes in Mr Marles’s argument.
The publicly available data does show the current fleet is still relatively old in historical terms. But experts told Fact Check this situation could not be attributed solely to the Coalition, given that Labor did not bring into service any new major surface combatant ships when last in power and only commissioned one ship that met the broader US definition.
Moreover, the data is an imperfect measure of Australia’s naval capability. That’s because the decommissioning of an older ship without a replacement would reduce the age of the fleet but, at the same time, its size.
What is the surface fleet?
Fact Check contacted defence industry experts for help in assessing the age of Australia’s surface fleet.
They agreed that there was no single way of defining the term “surface fleet”, other than by excluding sub-surface vessels such as submarines.
Given this ambiguity, Marcus Hellyer, a defence analyst and the head of research at Strategic Analysis Australia, argued for assessing Mr Marles’s claim using two separate definitions: major surface combatants, and something akin to the US Navy’s Battle Force classification.
“Since he was speaking in the wake of the release of the ‘surface fleet review’ … I suspect he was referring to major surface combatants,” Dr Hellyer said, discussing Mr Marles’s April claim.
That fleet review, or the Independent Analysis into Navy’s Surface Combatant Fleet, referred to destroyers and frigates as “major surface combatants”.
Dr Hellyer added that in the past this definition would include Australian ships that had been classified as destroyer escorts, battle cruisers and cruisers.
In making his latest claim, Mr Marles noted that HMAS Anzac, the oldest of the Anzac class frigates, was “on its last legs” and that this meant Australia “had 11 coming down to 10 surface combatants”.
Indeed, shortly before the May 2022 election, an archived version of the navy’s website showed there were eight Anzac class frigates along with three Hobart class air warfare destroyers.
With the decommissioning of HMAS Anzac (III) in May this year, the number of these major surface combatants was reduced to 10.
Fact Check takes Mr Marles to be talking about major surface combatants when he talked about Australia’s “surface fleet”, but experts said there were also broader definitions of which ships might count as surface combatants.
Broader definitions
Jennifer Parker, an adjunct fellow in naval studies at UNSW Canberra with more than 20 years of experience in the Royal Australian Navy, told Fact Check that, in the broadest sense, the combatant fleet would include “all surface ships in the [navy], including auxiliary ships”.
“The surface combatant fleet in my view is made up of destroyers, frigates and corvettes. But there is no strict definition, [so] you could argue it also includes aircraft carriers.”
Jack McCaffrie, a retired naval officer and visiting fellow at the University of Wollongong’s Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, said mine warfare ships and replenishment vessels, such as oil tankers, should also be included: “the former because they are combatants and the latter because we don’t get far without them”.
Peter Jones, an adjunct professor with the University of New South Wales’s Naval Studies Group and a former vice admiral and chief of the Royal Australian Navy’s Capability Development Group, also recommended the inclusion of the post-WWII Bathurst class corvettes, which are referred to as Australian minesweepers.
He agreed with the inclusion of oil tankers and added patrol boats and amphibious assault vessels to the mix.
Meanwhile, the US Navy’s Battle Force classification includes a “combatant ship category” covering major surface combatants, aircraft carriers, mine warfare vessels, amphibious warfare vessels and support and logistics ships, along with “littoral” (coastal) combat ships.
To account for the range of definitions, Fact Check will assess the age of the surface fleet on the narrower definition of major surface combatants, as articulated by Dr Hellyer, and on the broader US Navy Battle Force definition (excluding submarines and submarine support vessels), which includes most of the vessel types mentioned by other experts.
Source of the claim
Fact Check contacted Mr Marles’s office to ask for the source of his claim but did not receive an on-the-record response.
It is possible that Mr Marles has relied on internal government documents that are not available to the public and that could adopt valid methodologies which differ to those used above.
The recent surface review said it “concurred with the [Defence Strategic Review]’s findings that the current and planned surface combatant fleet is not appropriate for the strategic environment we face, noting it is the oldest fleet Navy has operated in its history”.
As an example of what might be covered by different methodologies, Ms Parker speculated that ships often undergo upgrades that may affect the way the age of a ship is viewed.
However, she said that such changes were not worth including in Fact Check’s analysis, because while they might affect the capability of the equipment on board, such as missiles and radar, they would not affect the age of the hull, “which is one of the most important elements”.
Fact Check has not incorporated data on ship upgrades into this analysis but has sought to take account of when a ship has changed roles, as was the case for River class frigates HMAS Diamantina (I) and HMAS Gascoyne (I), which ended their service as survey vessels.
It should be noted, however, that any analyses are sensitive to which vessels are included and how they are classified.
Where is the data?
A comprehensive dataset of all warships that have served in the Royal Australian Navy does not exist online.
However, the navy’s official website contains a list of currently serving vessels, while the Sea Power Centre, which sits within the navy, provides a list of past ships (and their histories).
Both sources contain information on when each ship entered into service in the Royal Australian Navy (its commissioning date) as well as when each ship left service (when it was either decommissioned or lost in battle).
Importantly, some vessels began service in other navies before being purchased or requisitioned by Australia. Experts contacted by Fact Check all agreed that the date of a ship’s original commissioning into any navy should be used.
Ms Parker directed Fact Check to an appendix in David Stevens’s (editor) book The Royal Australian Navy: A History. The appendix lists major vessels that were in service between 1901 and 2000 and indicates the year they began service elsewhere.
In these cases, Fact Check has sourced exact commissioning dates from the Sea Power Centre’s individual histories of ships or the Naval Historical Society’s records.
Ships that did not appear in the appendix of Stevens’s book or in archives of the Royal Australian Navy website have been excluded from this analysis.
What the data says
On the graph below, Fact Check has plotted the average age (as recommended by experts) of the surface combatant fleet for each day between September 2, 1945, when World War II ended, and May 21, 2022, when the last election was held.
The graph shows there were several periods, including long stretches during the 1980s and 1990s, where the surface combatant fleet was older on average than when Labor came to office, though the present-day average is not far off the historical peak.
Notably, Labor handed the Coalition a similarly old fleet in 2013, and the fleet remained older for much of the Coalition’s time in government.
The average peaked above 7,000 days on January 11, 1991. The average age of the fleet at the last election was 5,627 days.
The graph below compares the state of play on these two dates.
The age of the fleet also came close to 7,000 days in September 2017, under the previous Coalition government, before the navy began commissioning the first of a new group of Hobart class destroyers into service.
Turning to the broader US Navy Battle Force definition, there was again a stretch, this time beginning in the 1970s and ending in 2001, where the average age was higher than it was for the fleet Labor inherited on the day of the election.
It peaked above 7,000 days in September 1998. The average at the election was 5,207 days.
As previously noted, it’s not clear which source Mr Marles has used for the basis of his claim. But the above data demonstrates that, on a simple reading, while the surface fleet is old in historical terms, it is not the oldest it has been since World War II.
A numbers game
Experts contacted by Fact Check noted there were flaws in using the average age of the fleet to assess its capability.
Dr Hellyer said the fleet could be quickly de-aged by retiring older ships without replacing them, which is shown by the zig-zags in the charts.
“So you can quickly get a younger fleet but also a smaller fleet. Is that a good outcome?
“The answer to [that question] is no, the navy is not fit for purpose. Not only are its ships old, we don’t have very many of them.”
Indeed, the number of surface combatants is also low by historical standards, as the following graph shows.
As previously noted, there were 11 major surface combatants in the Royal Australian Navy at the time of the election. This later became 10 with the decommissioning of HMAS Anzac (III), which is not shown on the graph.
The recent surface review revealed that the government plans to decommission one further Anzac class frigate before the first Hunter class frigate is commissioned next decade.
The last time the fleet contained just nine major surface combatants was during two brief periods in the early 2000s, and before that the year 1965.
Dr McCaffrie also expressed concern with the low number, telling Fact Check: “The preferred number has been 12 for many years now — and numbers do make a difference.”
Who deserves the blame?
On either definition considered by Fact Check, the data shows a pronounced fall in the average age of the fleet from the early 2000s to 2006, while Coalition prime minister John Howard was in office. The average then trends upwards towards the present.
It was during Mr Howard’s time that most of the Anzac class frigates were coming into service, with the last of these, HMAS Perth (III), commissioned in August 2006.
From then, no major surface combatants were commissioned until the first of the Hobart class destroyers came into service in September 2017 — more than a decade later.
And it was a similar story for ships that met the US Navy definition: fuel tanker HMAS Sirius was commissioned in September 2006, with no new ships added to the fleet until the amphibious assault ship HMAS Canberra (III) entered service in November 2014.
Labor did commission into service the amphibious troop and equipment carrier HMAS Choules in 2011, but the vessel was purchased from Britain’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary where it entered service in 2005, so did not substantially lower the average age of the fleet.
It’s worth mentioning that experts have previously told Fact Check that this ship plugged a capability gap, even if it wasn’t a new vessel.
Nonetheless, given the long lead times of new ship commissioning, it’s safe to say the current age of the fleet is not the product of any one government.
“It’s pretty clear that whichever way you look at it the fleet is old,” Dr Hellyer said.
“[When last in government] Labor could easily have ordered more Hobarts while the production line was open, but didn’t. The Coalition’s naval shipbuilding plan has been an utter debacle. It too could have ordered more Hobarts, but instead it chose the Hunter — an immature design that wasn’t … in the water or in service and also needed significant modifications.
“But the decisions both governments have made have been based on advice from the Department of Defence, so much of the blame should be attributed … to the leadership of the department,” he said.
Dr McCaffrie agreed that “given the length of time to get a ship from [the] drawing board to commissioning and the usual length of service”, it would be fair to say both parties shared the credit or blame for the state of the fleet at any one time.
“The current surface combatant force represents decisions taken by both major parties,” he said.
Ms Parker said the age of the fleet could be traced to both parties’ failure to quickly agree on a successor to the Anzac class frigates, despite the need to replace them being flagged by the 2009 Defence White Paper.
“The 2009 white paper details the need to replace the Anzac class frigate, but a future frigate was not selected until the Hunter … in 2018. Both governments failed to progress the decision to replace the Anzacs within an appropriate time frame,” she said.
Ms Parker added that the “absolute failure” to adequately resource the defence budget had also contributed to the current situation.
Principal researcher: RMIT ABC Fact Check managing editor Matt Martino