Australia's government owned ABC Newsreports, January 14, 2019:
"Defence secretly considered walking away from the $50 billion French submarine deal during protracted and at times bitter contract negotiations, and started drawing up contingency plans for the new fleet.
The revelations are contained in a new report by the [Australian] auditor-general that also confirms the program is running nine months late and that Defence is unable to show whether the $396 million spent so far has been "fully effective"...