Submarine builder ASC insists the federal government has told it nothing about its plans for the next generation of submarines.
ASC interim chief executive Stuart Whiley told a parliamentary committee the first he heard of a proposed competitive evaluation process to find a replacement sub was when Defence Minister Kevin Andrews mentioned it on TV on Tuesday.
That's despite ASC officials meeting the minister hours earlier.
This latest revelation fired up the heated debate about how the government is going about finding a replacement for the six Collins subs which reach retirement age from the middle of next decade.
Labor called it more evidence of a chaotic process.
Mr Andrews said the government was working though a collaborative evaluation process.
"We are looking at the detail of what's involved in that process ...and once we have done that we will be able to make some further announcements," he told reporters at Puckapunyal army base in Victoria.
ASC, previously the Australian Submarine Corporation, constructed the Collins submarines between 1990 and 2003 at its yard in Adelaide.
Since then, the company has performed support and maintenance work on the Collins boats and also constructed the navy's new air warfare destroyers as a member of the AWD Alliance.
The government is looking to acquire up to 12 new submarines, which will be based on a foreign design. It's talking to Germany, France, Sweden and Japan, with the latter tipped as frontrunner.
The former Labor government promised they would be built in Adelaide. In opposition, the coalition made the same promise but now it's hedging.
ASC, with its long but sometimes troubled track record of building and maintaining subs, would be expected to play some part in acquisition or support of the vessels.
But Mr Whiley said they had no idea of any details of any requirements.
"At this time the government hasn't specified what they want in terms of their requirements of the submarines. So it's very hard to actually speculate what that requirement actually is," he said.
Liberal Senator Sean Edwards said ASC should have reached out to the government first rather than sitting on its hands.
"Why wait for the government to come to you, with thousands of jobs on the line," he said.
Labor Senate leader Penny Wong said ASC had to bid on capabilities the government outlined.
"ASC said themselves today they haven't been told what the government's capability requirements are. This is an utterly chaotic process from a government that is walking away yet again from jobs in South Australia," she told reporters in Adelaide.
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