Defence officials have quietly travelled to the Canary Islands to purchase a large second-hand vessel for Pacific Ocean operations, angering the local industry which was expecting the ship to be built in Western Australia.
The five-year-old, Norwegian-built offshore supply vessel known as Horizon Star has been renamed Australian Defence Vessel (ADV) Reliant in readiness for it to be transferred to its new home port of Brisbane.
In 2018, the Morrison government announced it would build a "large-hulled" naval vessel in Australia to help neighbouring Pacific nations deal with natural disasters — but in October it confirmed the support ship would instead be purchased overseas.
According to sources familiar with Defence department deliberations, plan B was to have a new vessel built by Dutch company Damen in Vietnam, but then another second-hand vessel was selected in South-East Asia before the plan C deal also fell through.
Earlier this month, Defence officials confirmed a second-hand vessel had finally been purchased in the Spanish tax haven of the Canary Islands, with tender documents uncovered by the ABC confirming the sale price as $93.4 million.
Another tender document published by Defence in April reveals the Commonwealth has also paid almost $5.5 million for "Dry Docking Activities" and $1.2 million for "management services" to Canadian company Horizon Maritime Services.
Last month, Defence officials confirmed a $US67 million purchase had finally been completed in February for a second-hand vessel located in the Spanish tax haven of the Canary Islands.
According to last month's federal budget, $193 million has been approved for the "Pacific Support Vessel", with an estimated $88 million allocated for the 2022-23 financial year.
ADV Reliant is moored at the cruise-ship port of Las Palmas, where final checks are being made on the 103-metre-long vessel, which was previously operated by a commercial company.
Confirmation that the Pacific support vessel has been bought overseas instead of built in Australia has angered the local defence industry, which is still grappling with the cancellation of the Attack-class submarine program, and delays to the Hunter-class frigate program.
Brent Clark, CEO of the Australian Industry and Defence Network, which represents local military suppliers, said the decision was "quite simply … incredibly disappointing".
"Let's remember, [then]-minister [Christopher] Pyne made this announcement several years ago. If Defence or the government had been able to actually go straight into a contract and look at how they would source this vessel in Australia, we would probably be very close to having this vessel in the water today anyway."
On Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Coalition would commit $124 million to build two more evolved Cape-class patrol boats in Western Australia.
Defence has so far not commented on how many Departmental officials remain in the port city of Las Palmas, as final maintenance checks are carried out, before the newly named ADV Reliant sets sail for Brisbane.
