Markus Pfister writes:
To sum it up: Surely then both Hugh White and James Goldrick can agree that we need to aim first for sea denial, and when that has been achieved we could and should spend the balance of our naval resources on achieving some degree of sea control, and that this worthy aim might deserve more resources in order to achieve more of it.
To this end I propose, having heard some time ago that, perversely, the surface ship faction is the dominant faction in the RAN, that either we begin a policy of promoting submariners to Chief of Navy (my preferred option) or alternatively that we hive our submarine fleet off into a fourth service.
[fold]
PS: I note that our current Chief of Navy, whatever his presumably substantial merits, seems to have been everywhere but submarines, according to his bio on Wikipedia.
PPS: My glance at Vice Admiral Grigg's CV on Wikipedia caused it to occur to me that Australia's sea denial currently consists in practice of Operation Resolute, which includes border protection and anti-poaching tasks, undertaken it appears by frigates (Grigg's bio) and patrol boats (Navy website) and for which I assume submarines are not particularly useful.