Richard Marles warns of submarine ‘capability gap’

The Defence Minister has cast doubt on the chance the nation’s first nuclear powered submarine would arrive much before the 2040s.

A US nuclear submarine takes part in military exercises. Picture: AFP.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has cast doubt on the chance the nation’s first nuclear powered submarine — which he said could be UK-designed — would arrive much before the 2040s, fearing a “capability gap” will emerge as the current Collins class submarines become obsolete during the 2020s.

Suggesting the previous government had left the submarine program in a “mess”, the deputy prime minister said he was investigating what the government could do to accelerate the delivery of the eight nuclear-powered submarines promised under the AUKUS security pact because the 2040s were “a long way away”.

“I think truth is where the former government left us when they left office six weeks ago, is a time frame of not getting the first submarine until the 2040s … that’s what we’ve inherited,” he said, speaking to The Australian in Washington on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST).

“We need to be announcing which sub we’re going with first part of next year to provide a solution to that mess, not just which sub but when, the capability gap, and how we’re going to fill it and a critical component of that is going to be cost,” he added, pointing out the government had inherited “a trillion dollars of debt”.

Mr Marles was speaking on the second day of his four-day trip to the US to impress on the Biden administration the Albanese government’s determination to maintain the previous government’s commitment to escalate military and intelligence relations with the US to counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.

“There is no difference in what I would describe as posture and the issues of substances … there is a difference in tone … we’re not about beating our chest, we believe in the power of diplomacy,” he explained.

The AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and UK, revealed in September last year, provided 18 months for the three nations to develop a concrete path for Australia to acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines using UK and US technology.

The deal envisaged the submarines would be built in Australia, but experts have suggested the earlier submarines at least would need to be made in the US or UK given the difficulty of developing a domestic nuclear submarine industry quickly.

Mr Marles, who said he wanted to build a “shared industrial based” with the US, was adamant the bulk of each submarine, notably except for the nuclear reactors, would be built in Australia, saying UK designed nuclear-powered submarines were “absolutely” a live option.

“We have to build the capability or develop the capability to build a nuclear sub if we want things to come online sooner rather than later,” he added, suggesting the US and UK “were at capacity in terms of supply subs to their own countries”.

Amid speculation the eight nuclear submarines could cost in excess of $170 billion (more than double the cost of the pervious, jettisoned contract to acquire French conventional submarines), said it was a “completely reasonable question” to ask whether the submarines might be too expensive.

“We operate within fiscal constraints but it’s also clear we need this capability, and it’s really clear that we have made a commitment to it, a commitment to keeping defence spending at 2 per cent,” he said.

In his speech on Tuesday Mr Marles promised to boost the power of Australia’s military to avoid a “catastrophic failure of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific and undertook to play a more active role in repelling Chinese influence in the Pacific, where China has sought to grow its economic and security alliances with small island nations.

“There is no more important partner to Australia than the United States. The US-Australian alliance has become a cornerstone of Australia’s foreign and security policy,” Mr Marles said in his first speech in Washington as defence Minister in the Albanese government.

He will meet Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).