Premier Peter Malinauskas hails AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine builder

In a landmark day for our state, ministers from the Australian and UK governments are in Adelaide to announce key new details of the AUKUS nuclear subs project.

Adelaide shipbuilder ASC will be the joint constructor and sole maintainer of the nation’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet, in a decision hailed as “yet another massive day” for the state by Premier Peter Malinauskas.

Flanked by US ambassador Caroline Kennedy and visiting UK ministers, including David Cameron, Mr Malinauskas led off a press conference announcing nuclear powered submarine builders and sustainment.

Invoking the late John F. Kennedy in front of the famed president’s daughter, Mr Malinauskas said this would kickstart highly skilled jobs training in an extraordinary national enterprise.

“So this enterprise, this national endeavour is not a case of what the Commonwealth can do for South Australia but, rather, what South Australia can build for our nation,” he said, prompting a faint smile from Ambassador Kennedy.

Premier Peter Malinauskas invoked John F. Kennedy in front of the famed President’s daughter at Adelaide’s Osborne Naval Shipyard. Picture: Paul Starick

ASC and Osborne Naval Shipyard neighbour BAE Systems Australia were on Friday named as the joint builders of Australia’s AUKUS submarines.

ASC, the builder and maintainer of the nation’s six Collins class submarines, also will handed the lucrative sustainment program for nuclear-powered submarines, starting with Virginia class boats to be obtained from the United States and followed by an Adelaide-built fleet.

Defence Minister Richard Marles says this will involve “significant workforce growth and the development of skills, knowledge and experience”.

He said Adelaide nuclear-powered submarine construction had an unstoppable momentum because of key shipbuilder announcements and enduring support for AUKUS.

Asked if this would answer prominent critics who claim AUKUS submarines will never be built in Adelaide, Mr Marles said the three governments in the security pact were “working at a pace to make this happen”.

“This is going to happen, and we need it to happen from an Australian point of view,” he said.

“Long-range capable submarines are the single most important military platform that we can bring to bear, and that will not have the capability in the future as it even has today, unless we move to having them being nuclear-powered.

“We are utterly committed to walking down that path. And the reason we have confidence about this, despite all the commentary that you might hear, is that there is a bipartisan position on this in Australia, as there is in the UK and there is in the United States as well.”

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said building the nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide was “perhaps the most evident and the most obvious” aspect of the AUKUS trinational security pact.

“It’s great to be here in Adelaide for such an auspicious moment in time because as everybody realises we’re living in a more dangerous time, the world is perhaps going through a trickier period,” he said.

“I described it previously as going from the post-war to a pre-war era, but not because we want to be at war – in fact, we want exactly the opposite.

“And that is why AUKUS is so important. It gives us the opportunity to work globally, with the United States and Great Britain and with Australia, to build these extraordinary machines.”

US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy said it was an honour to be at Osborne with senior leaders from her nation’s two closest allies.

“And to be here with all the people in this shipyard who are going to be part of this incredible workforce of the future,” she said.

Premier Peter Malinauskas with US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy. Picture: Paul Starick

ASC chairman Bruce Carter said his firm’s selection as a submarine partner assured “Australia’s sovereign submarine capability for generations to come”.

“ASC has proven over its 35-year-plus history that it has the capability to establish a shipyard, assemble a skilled workforce, develop a robust sovereign supply chain and build an entirely new class of submarine - the Collins Class, our first-ever Australian-built submarine,” he said.

“ASC has the skills, knowledge and experience to replicate that feat within the nuclear-powered submarine program.”

ASC managing director Stuart Whiley said detractors when the Collins program was established in the 1980s had argued it was beyond both Australian industry and workers’ skills.

“But within the organisation, there was a high level of confidence about our ability to complete the task. We had a sense of enthusiasm and a strong resolve to succeed,” he said.

“History shows that ASC successfully grew a skilled workforce to build and maintain an asset as complex and unique as the Collins Class submarine fleet.

“We are confident that we can do it again with nuclear-powered submarines.”

BAE Systems chief executive Charles Woodburn said the firm’s selection alongside ASC recognised its role as the UK’s long-term submarine design and build partner, and as a key player in Australian maritime enterprise and defence.

“Drawing on decades of experience in the UK and Australia, we look forward to working with ASC to develop an enduring, sovereign nuclear-powered submarine building capability for Australia,” he said.

“We’re already making good progress on the design and development of the next generation submarine in the UK where we have more than 1000 people working on the SSN-AUKUS program and major infrastructure investment underway.

“This latest step will ensure an integral connection between the UK design and the build strategy development in Australia, as we work together to deliver next-generation military capability as well as considerable social and economic value to all three nations.”

Babcock Australasia chief executive officer Andrew Cridland said his firm looked forward to continuing a longstanding sustainment partnership with ASC “in support of Australia’s optimal pathway to sovereign nuclear-powered submarines”.

“We are world-leaders in nuclear submarine capability, playing a crucial role in the UK, US and Australia’s submarine programs today,” he said.

“Babcock sustains 100 per cent of the UK’s Royal Navy submarine fleet and we own and operate and the UK’s only licensed facility for refitting, refuelling and defueling nuclear submarines.

“Through our partnership with HII, we bring more than 100 years of proven experience, in the key areas of sustainment, workforce development, nuclear infrastructure design and build, submarine defueling and decommissioning and nuclear waste.”

As revealed on Advertiser.com.au, the announcements were made in Adelaide during Friday’s high-level talks between Mr Marles, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and their United Kingdom counterparts Grant Shapps and David Cameron.

In joint statements with Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, Mr Marles outlines plans for a Skills and Training Academy at Osborne, including overseas placements in the US for vocational teachers to learn nuclear-powered submarine skills in a “train-the-trainer” scheme.

Mr Malinauskas told The Advertiser the announcements were “a very significant milestone” which unlocked “a whole range of opportunities in our state in the immediate future, rather than distant future”.

ASC being the joint builder and sole sustainer meant “a rising tide lifting all boats” and ensured deep maintenance of the Collins class would continue without skilled workers being poached for the nuclear-powered submarine workforce.

Premier Peter Malinauskas at BAE Systems Submarines Academy for Skills and Knowledge at Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdom. Picture: BAE Systems

“South Australia being the home of the deep maintenance of the Collins class submarine provides a set of skills that, with appropriate training, can have utility for the purpose of the nuclear submarine sustainment program,” Mr Malinauskas said.

He revealed he hoped to visit the UK later this year to tour Rolls-Royce Submarines’ Derby plant, where nuclear reactors for the AUKUS submarines will be made.

“There will be a lot of South Australians who will require a level of nuclear technical skills in terms of how the reactor intersects with the construction of the rest of the submarine. So we are going to need a lot of people with the skills associated with roles that Rolls Royce have currently, in order to undertake this endeavour, notwithstanding the fact that the core of the reactor will be built in Derby, UK,” he said.

The Virginia-class attack submarine Montana (SSN 794) conducts initial sea trials in 2022 in the Atlantic Ocean. Montana is the 10th Virginia-class submarine. (US Navy photo courtesy of HII by Ashley Cowan)

Mr Malinauskas said the training and skills component was, arguably, the most important, because the state’s historically low unemployment rate created “a challenge in front of us to make sure we have the appropriate skilled labour that is required to build the most complex machines that have ever been constructed in Australia’s history”.

“That starts of course, with the training exercise, which we know will be substantial to uplift the capacity of the South Australian workforce,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“Now that we know BAE, in conjunction with ASC, will be building the submarines, it allows for swift design of the Skills and Training Academy to be built in Adelaide.

“But we also see progress announced today from the federal government around the train-the-trainer exercise, which of course requires the mobilisation of a workforce to experience nuclear submarine construction in the US, but also in the UK.”

Premier Peter Malinauskas and UK Defence Procurement Minister Alex Chalk at the Barrow-in-Furness nuclear submarine shipyard operated by BAE Systems in 2023. Picture: supplied

Mr Malinauskas said the ambition should be for a Skills and Training Academy like that at BAE’s Barrow shipyard in the UK, of which the “overwhelming size and scale” stunned him during a visit in March last year.

“What matters is that young people start getting the skills to build these extraordinary machines and that’s what I’m just keen to progress as much as possible over the years ahead,” he said.

“BAE, as it currently stands, have all the intellectual property around how that Skills and Training Academy operates. That is something that the Commonwealth aspires to attain in conjunction with BAE and ASC. So replicating that is all the more easier to progress now that we have BAE as the build partner.”

Opposition Leader David Speirs, who is fighting to limit the Greens vote in Saturday’s Dunstan by-election, attacked that party’s Senate push to squash AUKUS.

“The Greens want AUKUS and the Hunter Frigates program cut which means they are actively advocating for thousands of South Australian jobs to be axed with not a single care for the livelihoods that would be destroyed,” Mr Speirs said.