Christopher Pyne: Nuclear submarines will make SA ‘a hub of brilliant minds’, attracting the best and brightest

Christopher Pyne was one of the chief architects of Australia’s scrapped Naval French submarine plan. So why does he think the AUKUS deal is such an outstanding decision?

As a former Coalition government defence minister, I only have praise for the Albanese government’s decision to proceed with nuclear powered submarines.

In a nutshell, Australia will build eight new class of nuclear powered submarines called the SSN AUKUS beginning around 2030 at the Osborne Naval Shipyard. They will be designed by the British and carry US weapons and combat systems.

While we are waiting for the first of class to come off the production line in the early 2040s, we will acquire three to five Virginia Class nuclear-powered submarines from the US.

In order to train the Australian submariners, sustainers and maintainers and provide immediate defence for Australia, four Virginia Class US submarines and one Astute Class UK submarine will rotate through HMAS Stirling naval base in Perth.

The Virginia-class attack submarine USS California during sea trials. Picture: US Navy

Meanwhile, the regionally superior Collins-class conventional diesel electric submarines that the Australian Navy currently operates will continue to do their good work defending our national interests and undergoing Full Cycle Docking and their Life of Type Extension work, here at Osborne.

This is an outstanding decision on many fronts.

It builds on the decisions made by the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments to keep Osborne functioning by building the initial offshore patrol vessels there and now the Hunter Class anti-submarine warfare frigates there.

There is now a new, modern and busy shipyard at Osborne with a workforce bristling with capability.

The new submarine yard will go alongside it to the north of the current perimeter. It will be the most modern and one of the busiest submarine building facilities in the world.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during this week’s AUKUS summit. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

Even a new nuclear-powered submarine shipyard adds to the military capability of the Western Allies. Such yards are not a dime a dozen. There is one in the UK and two in the US. Now there will be a fourth in Adelaide.

Nuclear-powered submarines will be the most lethal weapon in the Australian military’s arsenal.

They are fast. They can stay underwater and are therefore less detectable for long periods of time.

They can travel vast distances. They have an inexhaustible source of energy. Because they are among the largest submarines in the world, they can carry both torpedoes and missiles launched from vertical and horizontal chambers, making them versatile in a fight.

The size and complexity of the manufacture of submarines will inevitably remake Australia’s strategic industrial base.

Lot Fourteen will be a hive of innovation following the AUKUS submarine announcement. Picture: Tom Huntley

Far from overseeing the slow decline of manufacturing, our industrial sector will be one of the most sophisticated in the world.

Submarine building requires the most specialised and highly trained trades people, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, technicians and project managers on the globe.

Adelaide will be a hub of brilliant minds, well paid people and a destination for the world’s brightest and best.

The world’s most important defence companies will need to be set up here and the ones that are already in Adelaide will expand.

Because military research has so many civil applications, it will lead to other tangential economic impacts that we can only imagine. The impact on our universities and training colleges will similarly be transformational.

South Australia has already been allocated 800 more Australian Government subsidised places in order to kick off the necessary upskilling of the South Australian workforce.

The reaction to the announcement from the Chinese government in Beijing has been predictable but that doesn’t make it justified.

China has monumentally grown their blue water navy in the last decade and militarised the South China Sea.

For Australia, the US and the UK not to respond would be a failure of government policy and represent a capitulation of our national interests.

In fact, the failure of government policy lies with China’s overt decision in the last decade to challenge the supremacy of the United States in the Indo Pacific theatre.

Prior to this change, China was seen by many nations of the Indo Pacific as a benign trading partner of mammoth size.

For example, instead of causing the ten ASEAN nations to move closer to China, its policy has caused them to band closer together and seek reassurance from the AUKUS strategic alliance that it isn’t losing interest in their region.

Nations like Japan have rearmed as a consequence and there is an appetite there to change their constitution to allow forward deployment of military forces rather than only being only allowed to act in self defence.

So that’s it for the praise, now, the hard work to deliver begins.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE IS A FORMER DEFENCE MINISTER AND MEMBER FOR STURT

Originally published as Christopher Pyne: Nuclear submarines will make SA ‘a hub of brilliant minds’, attracting the best and brightest