Urgency needed on AUKUS submarine program

Companies at the frontline of delivering the actual hardware of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine defence program have given a wakeup call to politicians that photo-ops urgently must give way to action. Nuclear-powered submarines will not build themselves and Australia has a lot of work to do on skills and technology to deliver on its part of the bargain. AUKUS is too important to fall victim to the endless delays and cost overruns that unfortunately characterise much of the nation’s recent defence procurement history. It is sobering to reflect on comments by Australian defence policy expert Paul Dibb that despite numerous defence reviews and the rapid military build-up by China, the size of the Australian Defence Force has not changed since 1986.

Defence Minister Richard Marles underscored the new urgency. He told The Australian’s Defending Australia summit the nation needed to be thinking about Australia’s defence force in a world that might be “far less certain”. He said ideas such as freedom of navigation were being challenged by Beijing’s new-found ambitions, which were injecting a “greater sense of strategic contest” into regions such as the Pacific Islands. The key question was how Australia would create a “defence force that enables us to resist coercion”.

Fine words, but there exists a yawning gap between what is promised and what is delivered. This matches the worrying imbalance between potential credible military threats and our lack of defence preparedness. Despite tough talk, the lack of urgency was on display in the federal budget, which added just $5.7bn to defence spending across the next four years with the bulk of the new money – $3.8bn – coming in 2027-28.

BAE Systems Australia chief executive Ben Hudson used the defence summit to deliver a blunt message to policymakers that the “thinking” phase of the AUKUS submarine program must give way to action. BAE will lead the construction of Australia’s future AUKUS-class submarines in Adelaide in partnership with Australian submarine builder ASC, with the first boat scheduled for delivery in the early 2040s. It also is preparing to start building the navy’s future Hunter-class frigates, which have been beset by design problems and cost overruns. The same failures must not befall the AUKUS program, which will depend heavily on having access to a highly skilled workforce. All five of Australia’s SSN-AUKUS submarines will be built at Osborne in South Australia, which will become one of the world’s most advanced technology hubs. Australian military personnel and civilians are undergoing intensive training in designing, building, maintaining and crewing nuclear-powered attack submarines.

But Australia currently lacks the technological skills needed for a nuclear program. Special programs have been introduced at leading universities. But Engineers Australia has warned the nation faces a deficit of 200,000 engineers within 16 years, and that we are ill-prepared for the huge uplift that will be required to deliver the $368bn AUKUS program. Babcock Australasia chief executive Andrew Cridland says enticing the next generation of Australians into the defence industry and upskilling and growing our workforce to support the delivery of the nation’s inaugural nuclear-powered submarines is one of Australia’s biggest challenges. He says we will need to upskill both blue and white-collar workforces on a scale never seen before. This is a challenge that government cannot afford to fail to meet.