Premier Peter Malinauskas urges action on building AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine shipyard in Adelaide

SA’s Premier wants to charge ahead on the $2bn nuclear submarine yard in Adelaide, even as a Trump administration review threatens the project.

Premier Peter Malinauskas wants to charge ahead with contracts for a $2bn Osborne nuclear shipyard, despite the AUKUS submarine project’s future being clouded by a United States review.

In an interview ahead of Monday’s Defending Australia summit in Canberra, Mr Malinauskas urged federal counterparts to get moving on issuing construction tenders for the 12ha site, in Adelaide’s northwest.

The $368bn AUKUS submarine project, centred on Osborne Naval Shipyard, has been threatened by a Pentagon review examining its alignment with US President Donald Trump’s America First agenda.

Premier Peter Malinauskas in his Victoria Square office. Picture: Kelly Barnes

But Mr Malinauskas, who will deliver a keynote address at the Defending Australia summit, warned unprecedented demands on the construction industry would complicate the nuclear-powered submarine shipyard build unless plans were swiftly advanced.

“That’s the next big challenge that we need to see and what I am keen for the Commonwealth to act upon is starting to go out to the market with consolidated plans around what that construction timeline looks like. I think that’s important,” he said.

“That does represent a challenge, because we have an unprecedented amount of demand in the economy at the moment around major construction, ($15.4bn South Rd) tunnels, ($3.2bn Women’s and Children’s) hospital, this is going to add to that.

“The sooner we can get out to the market on it, the sooner the market can start to plan about how they’re going to accommodate that demand.”

Mr Malinauskas said the housing industry had relayed concerns about escalating prices across the supply chain, including for critical concrete.

“The volume of concrete that the state needs to be able to meet our housing plans but also other civil construction works or commercial construction works is going up and the price of concrete is starting to go up,” he said.

“So these are challenges that the market can respond to if they know about it. That’s why I’m keen to see that advanced.”

Australian Submarine Agency director-general Jonathan Mead in March outlined plans for a $2bn transformation of the Osborne shipyard into the world’s “most advanced manufacturing centre”.

Work started the same month on an associated $500m naval shipbuilding skills and training academy, which Defence Minister Richard Marles at the time hailed as central to delivering “thousands of well-paid, high skilled jobs”.

In an Advertiser interview on Tuesday, Mr Marles acknowledged the importance of action at Osborne by quoting Martin Luther King Jr, declaring there was a “fierce urgency of now” to meet the deadline of the first Adelaide-built AUKUS submarines rolling off the production line in the early 2040s.

“It’s tempting to feel like that’s a long way off. In fact, it’s not. Given we are talking about such a long time frame, the challenge is to make every day count between now and then,” he said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Picture: NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

AUKUS must survive Trump review: Bristow

By Lachlan Leeming

The AUKUS nuclear submarine deal emerging unscathed from the Trump administration’s snap 30-day review is crucial to Australia and the entire Indo-Pacific’s security, a top defence expert has said, railing against calls for the deal to be dropped.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Dr Alex Bristow said the deal was critical for stability in the region, a day after former Prime Minister Paul Keating responded to news the US would review the $368 billion agreement by saying the move could give Australia an out.

“There are some commentators like Paul Keating … who have said that a few submarines is like throwing toothpicks against a mountain, compared to the size of the (Chinese army),” Dr Bristow said, referring to comments made by the former Prime Minister in 2021.

“(But) it’s very important for Australia’s security and also the security of the region … These are the absolute peak of maritime capability. It’s the one realm, the undersea realm, where US and allied technology is far ahead of China.”

Senior Ministers Richard Marles and Penny Wong on Friday backed the AUKUS deal to remain largely unchanged, ahead of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese heading to Canada for a G7 summit which could bring him face-to-face with Donald Trump.

Dr Bristow said he didn’t believe the AUKUS deal would rest on the Prime Minister securing a meeting with the president on the sidelines of the summit, but did say locking down a meeting was “politically very important”.

“If at any point during this process … he doesn’t get a meeting with Trump, that would be seen as problematic,” he said.

Foreign Minister Ms Wong on Friday, when asked what topics the PM would raise with the president, said “the Prime Minister is a very experienced international negotiator and I certainly won’t pre-empt what he might want or have to say”.

She added she was confident the decades-long economic activity spilling out from the AUKUS deal would result in America not demanding mass changes to the agreement.

Defence Minister Richard Marles on Friday likened Labor’s defence review which it undertook after winning government in 2022 to the US review of the submarines deal.

“The review which is being undertaken now is a completely natural step for an incoming government to take … It’s really what we did when we came to power and we undertook the Defence Strategic Review. It’s a major initiative, new governments are going to want to have a look at it to see how they can best operate it,” he said.

Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia would acquire three to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US beginning in the early 2030s.

Mr Albanese touched down in Fiji on Friday to meet Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, ahead of travelling to Seattle to meet businesses leader before heading to Canada for the G7 summit.

Originally published as Premier Peter Malinauskas urges action on building AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine shipyard in Adelaide