I wouldn't have conducted any military contracts with France or DCNS because they failed to deliver to the Russian Mistral class ship order and that's not the way you do business.

I don't know a lot about the submarine topic, but the following article suggests we're paying at least twice as much as we should be for these subs.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/why-did-we-agree-to-pay-too-much-for-french-submarines/news-story/9ed179b276d13922c15d767873c6dea2

It's good to have a partner that puts moral integrity ahead of russian rubles. And to be expected given the way the bear has been operating in recent years under stalinist Putin?

We also need to seriously consider taking these french subs as designed, as nuclear powered, for innumerable reasons, superior speed, stealth and an ability to stay safely submerged longer than any diesel variant can actually operate!

And given that's so, an ability to all but circumnavigate the globe north south, becomes very possible if ever expeditious as an essential military strategy.

We have some history with our French comrades in arms as the poppy covered fields of Flanders and the commonwealth grave sites at Passchendaele and elsewhere demonstrates.

As an aside, the French still have a vehicle building industry, coupled to a 35 hour working week, powered it would seem, by so called more expensive nuclear power, which I understand has a wholesale price of around 11 cents a kilowatt hour?

Whereas we courtesy of our much smarter leadership have neither! Incidentally.. I pay 24 cents a KH at the meter box, thanks to our reliance on cheaper coal!

And it seems we simply donated a locally invented, much more efficient and less expensive pulsed laser light uranium enrichment process. And courtesy of the "smartest man" ever to lead government, one K Rudd! What could we achieve if we had a half dozen just like him or KR clones?

Such genius is indeed extremely rare, except in Australian and indeed, inside the Australian Labor party!?
Alan B.

Armchair Critic - Possibly public servants, politicians etc know they are paying too much could it be some is in bribes to others plus some of that will come back to the people who make and negotiate these contracts.

If they receive it now it is a bride but a lucrative directorship or speaking engagement to a company in a few years time is not considered a bribe.
That is how Bill and Hillary Clinton did it and are still doing it.

I am still on the side of we did not need the subs in the first place.

With the ships to Russia I would say they were being good puppy dogs for America or the NSA had a lot of dirt on someone high in Government.

Philip, that,s a very long bow you are drawing for which there is absolutely no proof!

Armchair critic; how's the weather there in St Petersburg?
Alan B.

Philip S.
Yes I know all about the Bill and Hillary Slush fund, but you forgot to mention her latest email server scandal where she may have been selling state secrets by allowing access to classified documents on her unsecure server, as in the Chinagate scandal.

Alan B.
What exactly are you trying to say mate?
I think all the bs about Russia acting aggressively is exactly that.
Obviously you've fallen hook line and sinker for the rhetoric.

Tell me Alan, what has Russia supposedly this time?

Contract-winning French sub builder DCNS tied up in deadly Malaysian bribery saga

The French company awarded the right to build Australia's $50 billion submarine fleet is embroiled in a multi-million dollar bribery scandal over a submarine contract in Malaysia.

The allegations in Malaysia have engulfed the country's prime minister and spun out into a sordid tale of bribery, blackmail and murder.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last month awarded French shipbuilder DCNS the right to build the next generation of 12 Australian submarines - a decision that followed a fierce competition with Germany and Japan, and was itself mired in controversy over claims of political pork-barrelling to defend South Australian marginal seats.

French prosecutors now allege that DCNS engaged in "active bribery of foreign public officials" to win a $US2 billion contract in 2002 to build two Scorpene-class submarines for Malaysia. (imagine who got what for a $50 billion contract?)

Rest of story
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/contractwinning-french-sub-builder-dcns-tied-up-in-deadly-malaysian-bribery-saga-20160522-gp17ce.html