Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead says AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines program won’t fall over in a few years

Despite being under review in the US, the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines “will happen” and are “on track”, the project’s chief insists.

Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine chief Jonathan Mead is vowing Adelaide construction is “not a program that is going to fold in two or three years time” and insisting plans to transfer an American submarine are on track.

Arguing “there is no plan B, C or D” beyond the $368bn AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project he spearheads, Vice Admiral Mead did not directly refer to a United States review casting doubt over its future.

But he told an Adelaide conference he had just returned from visiting about 200 naval and ASC personnel embedded in the US Pearl Harbor naval base, working on Virginia Class submarines.

Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead said the AUKUS program was proceeding as planned and that there was no plan B, C or D. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Vice Admiral Mead highlighted the continued close links with the US navy through the Australians’ “world-class” work, saying AUKUS was proceeding as planned in the “optimal pathway” declared by all three leaders in March, 2023.

“I stand here today to confirm that AUKUS is real, it’s happening and it’s on track,” he told the ADM South Australia Defence Summit.

“ … There is no reinvention of a nuclear powered submarine program. There is no plan B, C or D. The nuclear-powered submarine and the optimal pathway is all those plans.

“We are doubling down on that plan, and we will deliver that plan, and we are delivering that plan on time, with the first major milestone being the US sending one of their Virginias to Australia in 2027.”

Doubt was cast over AUKUS’s future in early June, when it was revealed the Pentagon had ordered a review into the program and how it aligned with the Trump administration’s America First agenda.

Australian authorities have been confident about the project’s future, with Premier Peter Malinauskas telling The Advertiser’s Defending Australia summit in Canberra on June 16 that Australia would build submarines or be left with none at all.

Vice Admiral Mead told the Adelaide summit that the AUKUS submarine project had been conceived in August, 2021, because Australia determined that “we needed a world-leading warfighting capability”.

“It would be fair to say that the world and the region has become even less stable in the last four and a half years, less stable in the last four months and some would even say less stable in the last four weeks,” he said.

“I think all this reinforces the reason why we are embarking upon this unprecedented program to develop the capability that will defend Australia, protect Australians and safeguard our economic prosperity.”

Defence SA chief executive Matt Opie said the boost from ASC and navy personnel in Pearl Harbor was reinforced by his agency hosting trade delegations to the US and UK to help businesses enter AUKUS supply chains.

“This two-way technology transfer is proof positive that AUKUS is working,” he said.

Originally published as Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead says AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines program won’t fall over in a few years