Why Australia dumped the Naval Group submarine deal and went with nuclear subs: Christopher Pyne

As Defence Minister, Christopher Pyne was the architect of the old $90bn Future Submarines deal. There’s a clear reason why it’s not going ahead, he says.

Australia will acquire at least eight Next Generation nuclear powered submarines. As defence industry minister, I commissioned the new Osborne shipyard in which they will be built.

The Next Generation submarines will replace the French designed Attack Class submarines, which were also slated to be built at the Osborne shipyard.

All of this is good news for Australian manufacturing, jobs in science, technology, engineering and maths, trades jobs, educators and trainers at places like the Naval Shipbuilding College at Osborne that I established, defence industry companies in the supply chain of primes and industry in general.

It is particularly good news for Adelaide and South Australia where the jobs have been and will continue to be created.

It is a blow for Naval Group, the French company that won the right to build the conventional submarines for the Australian navy.

But it isn’t their fault.

Christopher Pyne when he was defence minister touring the HMAS Collins - the first Collins Class submarine - at the ASC North operations in Adelaide in 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Mark Brake

Naval Group did not lose the contract because of poor performance. Nor is the Attack Class anything other than the best and most lethal conventional diesel-powered submarine available to Australia.

This decision is no reflection on the smart and hardworking people of Naval Group.

What has changed is the access the US government has been prepared to give Australia to a technology previously not available to us. That is the Virginia Class propulsion system powered by a nuclear reactor with a 33-year life span.

There are also extraordinary new technologies developed in the UK for their submarine fleet. That technology is now available to Australia under a new trilateral security partnership between Australia, the US and the UK called the AUKUS alliance.

AUKUS is the game-changer.

The technology means that once the nuclear reactor is operational inside the submarine, powering its propulsion, it doesn’t need to be dismantled, recharged, have its nuclear fuel rods replaced or in any other way interfered with for 33 years, which is the lifespan of the submarine.

Australia does not have a civil nuclear industry. That was the insurmountable hurdle that Australia faced when choosing the replacement for the Adelaide-built Collins Class submarine in 2015-16.

We don’t have the trained maintainers and sustainers, the legislative framework in place, the dedicated and safe places for nuclear sustainment and maintenance.

A nuclear reactor with a 33-year life span removes those impediments to a nuclear-powered submarine.

The unveiling of AUKUS by President Joe Biden and prime ministers Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson, advances the breakthrough Australia made in early 2016 when Australia was included in the US National Technology and Industrial Base, the NTIB, that the US already had with Canada.

Being included in the NTIB gave Australian industry access to the US defence and industrial market in a way that we had never enjoyed before.

Thursday’s announcement builds on that initiative from the Turnbull government.

Most critically, the Defence department conducted a capability review that advised the Australian government that nuclear-powered submarines is the capability the Australian Defence Force requires – and not conventional submarines.

Faced with such advice, the national security committee of cabinet, of which I was a member when I was in parliament, had to act and acted appropriately. Nuclear-powered submarines are the military capability Australia needs for our national interest.

Australia’s strategic interests lie in the Indo-Pacific. It is a vast expanse of ocean.

Nuclear-powered submarines can stay underwater for longer, they can stay at sea for longer, they can travel farther distances than any other submarine, they can remain undetected for longer, they have almost limitless endurance.

They are usually bigger, which allows them to carry more weaponry and unmanned vehicles.

Those characteristics combine to make them more lethal than any other platform that exists in the water today. Which means, they win in combat.

For those of us interested in the security of our national interests and the safety of our serving men and women of the military, that is the only thing that matters.