Tribune’s note

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles used question time on 25 May to confirm that life-of-type extension (LOTE) work on the Collins class submarines will begin later this month [TA-260525-house-43807c883b19:s217]. The announcement builds on the previous day's programme launch and represents the most concrete scheduling commitment made publicly on the Collins LOTE to date.

Marles placed the government's investment at $11 billion over ten years — nearly double the $6 billion the previous Liberal government had allocated — framing the uplift as a deliberate capability choice rather than incremental maintenance. The programme is expected to sustain around 1,400 jobs at the Osborne Naval Shipyard and contribute to a total of 10,000 well-paid, secure jobs across the broader defence industrial base.

Marles positioned the Collins extension explicitly as both a near-term boost to submarine availability and a structural pathway toward Australia's future nuclear-powered submarines [TA-260525-house-43807c883b19:s217], a dual framing that connects immediate workforce and readiness gains to the longer AUKUS trajectory. The one source record available for this Note covers question time only; no ministerial media releases were included in this window, so the record is necessarily partial and readers seeking fuller programme detail should note that gap.

Primary records (1)

The official records this note draws on — the raw primary documents themselves, as published.

HansardQUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICERichard MarlesMonday 25 May 2026