Australia, UK sign historic 50-year AUKUS treaty to secure submarine deal
Australia and the UK have signed a new 50-year military pact involving nuclear-powered submarines, which is set to deliver one of the biggest leaps in Australia’s military capability.
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Defence and Foreign Ministers from the United Kingdom and Australia have signed a new 50-year military pact designed to underpin Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.
The deal was signed in Geelong on Saturday, the hometown of Australia’s Defence Minister, and dubbed ‘The Geelong Treaty’.
Officials from Australia and the UK have been forced to voice renewed enthusiasm for the AUKUS agreement, amid a US review of the deal. America’s defence and foreign minister-equivalents have not been part of AUKUS meetings in Australia this week.
Donald Trump and UK Prime Minster Keir Starmer and expected to meet in Scotland this week.
At Geelong on Saturday, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said the new pact meant jobs and military security.
“It’s a treaty which will last for 50 years,” Mr Marles said during a signing ceremony with his UK counterpart.
“It is a bilateral treaty which sits under the trilateral AUKUS framework, itself embodied in a trilateral treaty that was signed that I signed in Washington, DC., in August of last year.
“In doing this, AUKUS will see 20,000 jobs in Australia. It will see, in building submarines in this country, the biggest industrial endeavour in our nation’s history, bigger even than the Snowy Hydro scheme,” Mr Marles said.
“In military terms, what it will deliver is the biggest leap in Australia’s military capability, really, since the formation of the navy back in 1913.”
Alongside Mr Marles, UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey dubbed the Geelong Treaty a powerful agreement.
“It is a treaty that will support tens of thousands of jobs in both Australia and the UK,” Mr Healey said.
“It is a treaty to build the most advanced, most powerful attack submarines either of our nations have ever had. It is a treaty that will fortify the Indo-Pacific.
“It will strengthen NATO and we’re the politicians signing it today; But this is a treaty that will define the relationship between our two nations and safeguard the security of our country for our children and our children’s children to come.
“So this is a historic day.”
The agreement was announced by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles alongside their British counterparts, foreign and defence secretaries David Lammy and John Healey after the annual AUKMIN talks in Sydney on Friday.
The treaty is estimated to result in more than $41 billion in trade over the coming decades as the two countries boost their industrial capabilities to build new submarine fleets.
It comes as the Pentagon is in the middle of a review of the AUKUS pact, including the US’ commitment to sell Australia between three and five Virginia-class nuclear powered submarines in the 2030s.
Both Mr Marles and Mr Healey said it was “natural” that a new government, like the Trump Administration, would undertake a review of a large program like AUKUS and added Australia and UK were keen to contribute.
“We welcome it because it’s an opportunity for the new administration to renew America’s commitment to the deep AUKUS partnership that our three nations have,” Mr Healey said.
After acquiring the Virginia submarines, for which Australia is providing $3bn to the US to boost its ship building capacity — of which $1.6bn has already been paid — the plan is to then build five new SSN-AUKUS submarines to be delivered in the early 2040s.
The UK has planned to build up to 12 SSN AUKUS submarines, which would start entering service in the late 2030s.
Asked if the UK and Australia were prepared to go it alone if the US decided against selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, Mr Marles played down the possibility of that occurring.
“There’s obviously a lot of speculation in the question … but the AUKUS optimal pathway that was agreed back in March of 2023 is underpinned by a treaty that all three of our countries signed in Washington, DC, in August of last year,” he said.
Mr Healey said hypotheticals like a US backflip on AUKUS “simply aren’t part of the picture”.
Meanwhile Ms Wong said Australia and the United Kingdom were “longstanding friends and partners”.
“In these uncertain times, we are strengthening and modernising our relationship to advance our shared interests,” she said.
“We take the world as it is – but together, we are working to shape it for the better.
“From building defence capability and boosting economic resilience, to standing up for human rights, advancing gender equality, and defending the international rules and institutions that protect us all.”
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Originally published as Australia, UK sign historic 50-year AUKUS treaty to secure submarine deal
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