New AUKUS treaty with UK to keep $368bn nuclear-powered submarine program on track
Ministers believe having a new bilateral framework between Australia and the UK – in addition to the trilateral deal with the US – will accelerate the design, build and delivery of SSN-AUKUS.
Australia and the United Kingdom are to negotiate a separate bilateral treaty “at pace and with high priority” to keep the $368bn AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program on target.
The new treaty, which will be negotiated in confidence, is supplementary to the broader 2021 trilateral AUKUS deal between the UK, Australia and the United States.
Ministers believe having a new strategic and operational bilateral framework between just Australia and the United Kingdom will help the two countries focus on the core elements of the submarine, and will accelerate the design, build and delivery of SSN-AUKUS.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles met UK Defence Secretary John Healey, and the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin in central London on Thursday.
Earlier this week Mr Marles was in Norway to consolidate the $850m contract with Norwegian company Kongsberg to manufacture and service missiles in Newcastle.
“The Albanese government has been working closely with Kongsberg and the Norwegian government to see Australia both acquire and start manufacturing key missile technology here at home, and as a result securing hundreds of Australian jobs,” said Mr Marles.
Mr Marles was expected to discuss the skilling up of local workers for submarine manufacture with his AUKUS partners on Thursday.
Last year it was announced SSN-AUKUS would be based on the United Kingdom’s next-generation design, using nuclear power technology from the United States and other new technologies from all three nations.
The timetable has been for Australia and the UK to begin building SSN-AUKUS in local shipyards “within this decade” and that SSN-AUKUS will be the submarines used by the UK at the end of the 2030s and Australia will use them by early 2040s.
Just last month a new AUKUS trilateral treaty was announced in Washington which allows for the three AUKUS partners to continue to share submarine naval nuclear propulsion information between each other. It also allows the UK and the US to transfer material and equipment to Australia required for the safe and secure construction, operation and sustainment of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS partnership. The Australian has also reported how there had been secret agreements for the transfer of nuclear reactors and nuclear material.
However the Australian government says that its legal framework with the US is necessarily different in nature to its legal framework with the UK as they relate to different activities within AUKUS.
Specifically the new UK-Australia treaty will establish the operating framework to deliver the submarine under the Optimal Pathway plan, the government said.
Australian military personnel have already begun various rotations with the US Navy and the Royal Navy for training and development, while and other Australians have begun working on submarine industrial bases to develop skills to bring back home.
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