Defence bungled its $1.9bn Thales contract. AUKUS has no chance

In 2020, the Australian government signed a 10-year, $1.2 billion contract with Thales, a partly French state-owned defense company, to operate two Commonwealth-owned factories to domestically produce guided weapons, explosive munitions and other munitions for the Australian Defense Force.

As Bernard Keane wrote cricket This billion-dollar contract was signed in 2024 after a tender process. Only He involved Thales as a bidder and Thales helped write the tender documents. Despite this, Thales still vacated the bid on the grounds that it was significantly incomplete and of “high” risk, and that there were 199 non-compliances with the tender documents Thales had helped create.