Thousands of new jobs to build AUKUS subs: Richard Marles

South Australian shipyards could supply parts for the US and UK submarine programs as the three nations develop a ‘seamless defence industrial space’.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles speaks during a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Picture: AFP

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has promised “thousands” of new jobs to build Australia’s planned fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, which could ultimately see South Australian shipyards supplying parts for the US and UK submarine programs as the three nations develop a “seamless defence industrial space”.

In Washington to iron out the details of the government’s plan to acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines using US technology – to be unveiled next month - Mr Marles said the government still had “a lot of work to do” to grow and train the necessary workforce to build “the second most complicated thing humans build behind a space shuttle”.

Mr Marles arrived in the US from London where he had been holding similar talks with his UK counterpart Ben Wallace, who said he was “pretty confident” Australia’s fleet of nuclear submarines, would be a “tri-nation project”, fuelling speculation the new boats would be “next generation” as opposed to a replication of an existing UK or US design.

“I think what’s actually expected of us by both the US and the UK, is that we develop, we make a contribution to the net industrial base of the three countries by developing the capacity in Australia to build a nuclear-powered submarine,” Mr Marles told reporters on Friday (Saturday AEDT).

“I definitely think you will see a clear benefit for Australia, but to the US and the UK as well, for sure,” he added, speaking to reporters a little before his meeting with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The Prime Minster is understood to be trying to arrange an in-person meeting with President Joe Biden and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak in Washington DC sometime in mid-March, to jointly unveil the first phase of the AUKUS security pact, which promised Australia the means to build nuclear-powered submarines powered by US nuclear technology.

“We are getting to the pointy end of the process in terms of the announcement in relation to AUKUS and the submarines,” Mr Marles said, describing an earlier meeting with Jake Sullivan, the White House’s National Security Adviser, as “granular and constructive”.

Mr Marles, who is also defence minister, played down reports in other media that Australia would be ‘leasing’ US Los Angeles class nuclear-powered submarines from the US to plug a ‘capability gap’ in national defences after the Collins Class submarines become obsolete later this decade. “That’s just speculation,” he said.

Japan would be welcome to join AUKUS down the track, Mr Marles said, pushing against a recent statement by China’s foreign Minister that Beijing remained “seriously concerned and opposed’ to the trilateral pact, and especially any expansion to include Japan.

“Japan clearly has not expressed a desire to acquire [a nuclear] capability but in relation to other technologies I think there is interest in other parts of the world, and probably we‘re open to it,” Mr Marles said.

The Defence Minster said he “wasn’t surprised” or concerned to hear concerns expressed by some US senators in a letter to the president last year that the US own capacity to build new boats was already stretched, owing to the US navy’s own increased demand for submarines.

“Sometimes people seem to imagine there‘s some grand submarine showroom when we talk about ‘off the shelf’,” he said.

“The sense I get in conversations I’ve had on the hill is people do understand the strategic benefit for the US of Australia attaining this capability… in every meeting, the sense of commitment from both the UK and the US towards this has just been fantastic,” he added.