Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead, head of the Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce, hit back at critics of the AUKUS nuclear submarine plan

The head of the Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce says it was always a bedrock requirement that nuclear submarines be built in Australia.

Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead says ‘it was never envisaged we would buy all the boats off the line (from overseas)’. Picture: Gary Ramage

The head of the Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce has hit back at critics of the AUKUS plan, revealing it was always a bedrock requirement that nuclear submarines be built in Australia, thereby ruling out any option to buy the whole fleet from overseas.

Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead was responding to questions from strategic analysts in the US and Australia about why Australia did not choose to buy a whole fleet of Virginia-class submarines rather than also build a separate AUKUS boat that will create two types of nuclear submarines.

It came as the Albanese government stepped up its selling of AUKUS to Western Australia and South Australia, the two states to benefit most from the 20,000 jobs that AUKUS is predicted to create.

Defence Minister Richard Marles toured the visiting Los Angeles-class USS Asheville at HMAS Stirling in Perth while Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher toured the site of the future AUKUS submarine shipyard near Osborne in SA.

Australia plans to buy between three and five Virginia-class submarines from the US in the 2030s before building eight British-designed AUKUS submarines in Adelaide from the early 2040s.

Critics, including former Bush White House and Pentagon officials, have condemned the plan to acquire two types of nuclear submarines as a “Frankenstein approach’ that would be overly risky, expensive and inefficient.

Defence Minister Richard Marles on board the US Navy Submarine USS Asheville during a visit to HMAS Stirling, Western Australia.

Vice-Admiral Mead said there were several key reasons why his taskforce did not recommend the purchase of eight to 10 ­Virginia-class boats over building an Australian AUKUS boat.

“The US and the UK and Australia made a very firm commitment that Australia would develop a sovereign shipbuilding industry and a shipyard, and a capacity to complement the other three AUKUS nuclear-powered shipyards (in the US and UK),” he told The Australian.

“One of the directives from the government was that we need to develop sovereign shipbuilding that has a nuclear-powered submarine capacity… so it was never envisaged we would buy all the boats off the line (from overseas).”

Vice-Admiral Mead said the option of building the Virginia-class submarines in Australia was also not feasible because the ­Virginia production line in the US was scheduled to end in 2043, which would be around the time that Australia would be starting its own construction of nuclear-powered boats.

“The Virginias ceasing production in 2043 meant that we could not build Virginias because that would not be an enduring ­solution for us,” he said.

“If you were to build past 2043, that supply chain was going to diminish over time, and if you take that to its logical conclusion, if we were building Virginias into the late 2040s, in the 2050s, there would not be a supply chain to support them in the 2070s.”

Vice-Admiral Mead also revealed that the US told Canberra it did not want Australians to build Virginia-class boats in ­Adelaide.

“The US said to us (that) you building Virginias is not really an option because we are ceasing production in 2043 and we do not want you to be building the boat by yourself,” he said.

Vice-Admiral Mead also said there were limits to how many off-the-shelf Virginia-class submarines Australia could absorb quickly from the US because it would take time to build the local ability to operate and sustain the submarines.

“It will take about 10 years, we believe, until we are what we call ‘sovereign ready’ in the early 2030s,: he said.

“That’s when we achieve the appropriate credentials, safety, security, and stewardship to be able to manage nuclear-powered submarines.

“(From then) you can only take a submarine about once every three years, because if you take a submarine quicker than that, you’ll overwhelm the ­system.”

Australia expects to receive its first Virginia-class submarine in 2033, followed by a second in 2036 and the third in 2039.

The nation has an option to buy two more Virginia-class submarines from the US if the AUKUS submarine build becomes delayed.