QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr MARLES (Corio—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence) (14:20): I thank the member for his question and acknowledge his service but also the contribution that his state is making to this great national endeavour. AUKUS is happening. In 2021, AUKUS was first announced by the Morrison government, and I acknowledge the contribution of that government to bringing these three countries together.

What was then an idea and a concept is today a great national project in full flight. On this day, there are 220 submariners working on Virginia class submarines serving in the US Navy. There are another 220 ASC workers at Pearl Harbor gaining invaluable experience in getting those same submarines out to sea.

There are 100 workers building the Skills and Training Academy at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Adelaide, another 900 working on the submarine construction yard at Osborne and another 250 building facilities at HMAS Stirling in preparation for the Submarine Rotational Force-West, which begins next year. In total, this is more than a thousand high-skilled, high-paid jobs right now—union jobs—providing income and livelihoods and supporting families, and we are not about to do anything which disrupts that.

In just a few years, we will see 10,000 workers at Osborne and thousands more at Henderson, and these will be the largest and highest tech industrial facilities in our country. Through AUKUS, the Royal Australian Navy will operate eight nuclear-powered submarines. That one of those—just one—is shifting from being a new Virginia to an in-service Virginia is a good deal.

It provides consistency against a backdrop of complexity. This makes it just a little easier, and it is a good financial deal. To be frank, this is what we wanted from the start, and that this is now what is going to happen is a great outcome for Australia.

We are a three-ocean nation, and so building our submarine capability fundamentally builds our national sovereignty. Were we to lose that submarine capability, we would become more reliant, not less, on our alliance with the United States. The Albanese government is utterly committed to Australia being a submarine nation, and we are utterly committed to AUKUS and, through that, building a submarine capability which will keep Australians safe.