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As you will all know by now, I'm the publisher of Ausmarine magazine and have been at the helm for coming up to five years.
Part of my job is speaking with a large number of ship builders. From them I've learned a lot about the industry and I must say I've loved every second of it.
But there is another part of my role that comes with this. That is to help report the issues that are appearing in our beloved industry, particularly when you aren't able to speak out publicly about these problems.
One thing that has been repeatedly mentioned is the farcical government tender process that has caused an enormous amount of trouble - both in terms of man-hours and finance.
But speaking out alone about these issues could cause ostracism from future contracts and essential income.
So here, my friends, I've put down the phone and picked up the pen in order to be a voice for these builders and to express my dismay at the way some of you are being treated.
In order to protect their future interests I'll keep them anonymous here. But the truth is that for every one of the points made in this article, there are many builders seeing the same problems.
I've frequently heard from my customer friends that government departments which put out tenders for a wide variety of vessels are truly taking liberties and pushing the boundaries of what can be classed as honest, perhaps even logical, business. It's quite regularly shocked and appalled me.
For anyone fortunate enough not to have to have experienced this process before, when a government body requires a new vessel, in the supposed efforts of fairness it issues a tender to which anyone can apply in an attempt to secure the contract.
Time is money
Before I go into the many issues we have come across, let's discuss the cost of these approaches in order to understand the magnitude of the problem. It can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of man-hours to complete a single tender, and that's if it's a simple one.
"Each of these processes can cost upwards of AU$20,000 all in the hope that you may win the job,"...