‘No retreat on DIY delivery of subs’, says Peter Malinauskas

SA is seeking guarantees the decision to buy up to five US nuclear-powered subs will not erode the ‘cast-iron’ commitment to create a sovereign nuclear submarine building capacity in Australia.

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Morgan Sette

South Australia is seeking guarantees the decision to buy up to five nuclear-powered subs from the US will not erode the “cast-iron” commitment to create a sovereign nuclear submarine building ­capacity in Australia.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has also warned future governments against opting to continue to buy more submarines rather than building them here, saying both SA and the nation stood to benefit from a domestic industry.

Mr Malinauskas said the timing of the announcement around the purchase of the five submarines could be a blessing in disguise as Australia did not currently have the domestic skill base to deliver on such an ambitious project.

“Australian cannot start building nuclear submarines tomorrow,” he said. “We need the workforce to build Australian ­nuclear submarines and that’s what we have got to see the focus on immediately, with serious plans to deliver that workforce.

“South Australians will know the federal government is serious about building nuclear subs in ­Adelaide when they start investing in the workforce.”

Mr Malinauskas said SA ­always knew there would be a capability gap between the maintenance of the Collins-class subs and readying the Osborne Naval Shipyard workforce for full-time construction under the AUKUS pact. But he said clarity was ­needed on what impact the decision to purchase subs would have on the timing of domestic manufacturing, and the scope of it.

“I’m OK with it as long as the commonwealth lives up to its commitment to build nuclear submarines in Adelaide ASAP,” he said.

“What matters here from the SA perspective and the national perspective is not how we plug the capability gap, which is real and worthy of being addressed in the nation’s security. What matters is are they building nuclear subs in Adelaide ASAP, and that’s the ­detail we have to have confirmed in the next few days.”

The speculation around the purchase of the submarines has caused disquiet in SA, with fears a future federal governments could opt to keep buying subs on cost grounds rather than investing in the expansion of the Osborne shipyard and the university.

Mr Malinauskas said it was for this reason that SA wanted to know when work would begin here. He said the key question now was not how many subs would be built in Australia, but when would the first be built. “The answer to that lies in when do subs start coming off the lines here in Adelaide,” he said. “There is no example of a ­nuclear submarine production line starting anywhere in the world and then stopping. Once you start producing nuclear submarines you keep producing ­nuclear submarines. We want that construction activity happening this decade because once it starts there is no stopping it. It just wouldn’t make sense for the ­nation’s security more than anything else.”

Mr Malinauskas has been in frequent talks on the subs question with Anthony Albanese, who on a visit to Adelaide two weeks ago was addressed directly by the Premier in a speech at an urban development function.

Mr Malinauskas told The Australian he stood by the commitments he gave in that speech in which he told the Prime Minister that SA did not regard the subs project as something to which the state was entitled, but something it would be capable of providing.

“Prime Minister, I look less to your de­cision on which class of submarine will be built in Adelaide, and more to how we will partner to deliver the workforce required to build it,” Mr Malinauskas told Mr Albanese.

“My government will deliver you an advanced top-100 univer­sity that’s the biggest educator of domestic students in the country; we just need the commonwealth to deliver the additional university places in the key fields that the submarine program requires.

“My government will build technical colleges in high schools, providing kids with the head start in the trades the submarine program needs; you just need to provide those kids with a submarine workforce academy that takes their skills to the next level.

“SA will provide you a defence, space and cyber ecosystem that’s industry driven; you just need to provide them with the long-term pipeline of work.”