Destroyer taken off troubled project list

The Navy's problematic Air Warfare Destroyer ship building project is back on track years after a $1.2 billion budget blowout.

An Air Warfare Destroyer in Adelaide

The Navy's problematic Air Warfare Destroyer ship building project is back on track. (AAP)

The Navy's troubled Air Warfare Destroyer project has been taken off Defence's shame file, after a three-year rescue program.

The cost of the three ships blew out from $9.12 billion by an extra $1.2 billion.

The first ship HMAS Hobart was 30 months late.

The second of the three destroyers - Brisbane started sea trails late last year and is expected to be commissioned in 2018.

The final ship, Sydney, is expected to be ready by late 2019.

The project was considered the most complex ship construction undertaken in Australia.

Delays with the shipbuilding process saw the project placed on the Defence department's "projects of concern" list in 2014.

The ships were built in modules and some didn't fit properly.

The coalition government instigated a rescue program in 2015 which saw Spanish shipbuilder Navantia play a greater role in managing the project and a shake-up at the government-owned shipbuilder ASC.

In 2014, then Defence Minister David Johnston's frustrations with the project and the ASC were on show when he told the Senate he wouldn't trust them to "build a canoe".

Defence Minister Marise Payne said the Brisbane and Sydney ships were both on track to be delivered against the reformed schedule.


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Source: AAP



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