SA state budget 2023: Premier Peter Malinauskas reveals Office for AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines

A plan to oversee the $368bn nuclear-powered submarine construction program in Adelaide has been revealed by the Premier ahead of the state budget.

An office to coordinate preparations for the $368bn nuclear-powered submarine construction in Adelaide will be established with state budget funds.

Premier Peter Malinauskas on Monday will reveal $5.4m funding to establish a state Office for AUKUS to help implement the build program at Osborne Naval Shipyard under the tripartite security pact.

He said ensuring the state was ready to build the planet’s most complex machines required the office to be established to oversee work by government agencies including Defence SA, Premier and Cabinet, Education and Infrastructure and Transport.

“AUKUS will transform South Australia’s economy for generations. This new office will play a key role in coordinating agencies across government to ensure we deliver a highly skilled workforce and the infrastructure we need to make the AUKUS program a reality,” he said.

At least eight nuclear-powered submarines will be built in Adelaide under an “optimal pathway” for AUKUS announced in mid-March by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Ahead of Thursday’s state budget, Mr Malinauskas said the state office would be a single point of contact for the federal government and would also be responsible for delivering commitments in a cooperation agreement he inked in March with Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles.

These included a land exchange to enable work to start on building the submarine construction yard and a skills and training academy campus at Osborne.

The federal government also agreed to allocate an extra 800 places to SA universities over the next four years, with the first 200 starting in 2024.

Mr Malinauskas on May 22 told The Advertiser’s Defending Australia dinner in Canberra that state governments must accept they have a role to play in AUKUS and they could no longer observe with a sense of entitlement, so SA was approaching defence with a sense of ambition.

In an interview with The Advertiser after visiting the UK’s nuclear submarine shipyard, Mr Malinauskas on March 20 said his meetings during the lightning overseas trip had reaffirmed his view that building a skilled workforce was the “single biggest risk” to the Adelaide nuclear-powered submarine construction.

Opposition Leader David Speirs on March 23 urged a bipartisan parliamentary joint committee to scrutinise the AUKUS submarine build program and expected benefits to the state.

He said this would transcend politics and ensure MPs worked “together to ensure the AUKUS dream becomes a reality for South Australia”.

Originally published as SA state budget 2023: Premier Peter Malinauskas reveals Office for AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines