MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (15:53): This week, Defence Minister Marles announced a significant change to the AUKUS plan. Australia will now receive three second-hand Virginia class submarines—not the two used vessels and one new and more capable unit that we had previously agreed on. The defence minister is claiming this as a win, saying that it reduces complexity.
He has claimed it won't materially change the overall cost of AUKUS. He's happy that we're paying just as much for less. We're being asked to accept that the most expensive defence procurement in Australian history will give us second-hand submarines.
The new Virginia class subs are more capable and they are easier to maintain. They have a 33-year lifespan. We have no idea how much service life the third vessel that Australia is getting will have left.
Meanwhile, the US is not building submarines fast enough for its own navy, let alone ours. The US Navy has admitted that it will not reach a production rate of two Virginia class boats per year until 2032. Even that rate would be insufficient for it to supply Australia.
The US Congressional Research Service has openly considered scenarios in which no Virginia class submarines are ever transferred to Australian command. The US Navy's own 30-year shipbuilding plan, released weeks ago, does not account for submarines built for AUKUS. In fact, the entire document mentions AUKUS only once, in a footnote.
What the government has not said and what it consistently declines to acknowledge is that there are not just practical problems with the delivery of these submarines but legal ones too. Under the United States federal law, the President of the United States must certify before any submarine transfer that its sale will not degrade American capacity and national security interests and that the US is making sufficient investments to meet both its own military requirements and its AUKUS commitments.
If that certification cannot be made, no transfer can be made. There is no mechanism to compel the US to make that transfer, and there is no fallback. In 2025, the United States undertook a review of the AUKUS arrangement.
Elbridge Colby, who led that review, had previously raised concerns that the United States lacks the capacity to spare us warships. We don't know what that review concluded. It's reported that by June 2027 we will have spent $11 billion on AUKUS.
This is a program whose delivery is far from guaranteed and whose legal preconditions for delivery rest entirely on another government. If AUKUS were the NDIS, this government would by now have announced fundamental cuts in order to 'secure its future' so that it could grow in a more sustainable way. I support the principle of AUKUS.
The partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States is vitally important for our national security. Our strategic circumstances in the Indo-Pacific require significant investment in our defence capacity. But supporting the principle of AUKUS is not the same as unconditional acceptance.
The change announced on Saturday represents a meaningful reduction in the capability and longevity of Australia's submarine fleet. Last April, I called for a parliamentary review of AUKUS. I'm glad to see that former Labor minister Peter Garrett is now independently undertaking one, but it's a national embarrassment that a former Labor minister is crowdfunding for an independent inquiry into AUKUS.
It feels like it's only a matter of time before we find ourselves crowdfunding for the submarines themselves! The biggest defence procurement in our history, spanning three decades and up to, or more than, $368 billion requires transparency from this government about timelines and risk and an honest accounting of what is being delivered and what is not. This government should commit to a full parliamentary review of pillar 1 of AUKUS—its delivery timeline, its costs, its risks and its strategic rationale—such is the basic obligation of oversight that this parliament owes to the Australian public on a commitment of this scale.