The newly created agency overseeing Australia’s $368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine program will be scrutinized by a veteran bureaucrat, less than two months after the ABC revealed widespread discontent inside and outside the government organization.

Former Department of Defense Secretary Dennis Richardson was tasked with overseeing the structure and providing advice on the direction of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA), led since its establishment last July by the Deputy Admiral Jonathan Mead.

Since then, ASA has grown to nearly 700 full-time employees, including a dozen military officers with 1-star or higher ranks, and an annual budget of $330 million, mostly made up of salary costs.

In September, the ABC revealed that one of the ASA’s most senior technical directors had resigned, along with wider concerns about the morale of other staff over staff turnover within the organisation.

In an interview with ABC at the time, Vice Admiral Mead dismissed suggestions of cultural problems within his agency, saying: “Some of our people have been in the program for three and a half years and it’s is a long time to be there. the program.

“We’re not fighting to keep the most qualified people, we have the most qualified people there, and they come to work every day with that purpose – the feeling that they want to protect Australia and defend our national interest. .

“It’s grueling hours, late night VTC (video conferences), face-to-face travel with our counterparts, so there is sometimes a natural rotation of people from ASA to other ministries, to Defense or to other ministries in the civil industry.

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The ABC has confirmed that since September the ASA’s deputy director general for policy and program implementation, David Hallinan, has also resigned and is now working in another shipbuilding role for the Department of Defense. Defense.

“(Mr) Hallinan was a huge loss – he was the only senior man with experience of major projects and infrastructure,” a source close to the ASA’s operations told the ABC, speaking under covered by anonymity.

The ABC has been informed of the government’s growing frustrations with the ASA, but a spokesperson for Defense Minister Richard Marles declined to comment, instead referring the ABC to comments made ago a month.

“It’s unlikely that I’ll be sitting here saying everything is perfect, everything isn’t, but a lot of things are, and I think we’re aware of what we need to catch up on,” Mr. Marles at the Submarine Institute of Australian Conference on November 5.

“And so, I basically have a real sense of confidence that this program is going in the direction that it is, and part of that is that we’re really trying to question ourselves, to hold ourselves accountable for the future directions.

Last month, the Biden administration asked Congress for an $8.8 billion emergency cash infusion to address shortfalls in the U.S. Virginia-class submarine program, as Australia sought to acquire least three of these boats in the 2030s.

The ABC has contacted Mr Richardson for comment.