The Government has announced a $310 million payment for the acquisition of long‑lead items from the United Kingdom to support Australia’s future sovereign conventionally‑armed, nuclear‑powered submarine capability.
“Australia continues to work with the United Kingdom and United States to develop the capabilities, skills and knowledge that will underpin our ability to build, operate and maintain nuclear‑powered submarines," Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, said.
“Early investment in components such as the nuclear propulsion systems will be critical to the delivery of AUKUS."
This will directly support the manufacture of critical components for nuclear‑powered submarines which will be built at Osborne in South Australia, including the nuclear propulsion systems of Australia’s first two SSN-AUKUS.
Under the AUKUS program, the United Kingdom will deliver complete, welded nuclear propulsion systems for Australian‑built SSN‑AUKUS boats, with work already underway at the Rolls‑Royce Submarine facility in Derby.
Early progress on reactor manufacturing is essential to maintaining program momentum, sustaining specialist skills, and align industrial schedules across the AUKUS partnership.
“Starting work early on critical submarine components is essential to keeping this program on track. The next-generation SSN-AUKUS submarines will be an extraordinary capability, designed and built by trusted partners and powered by a company with decades of nuclear-propulsion experience," Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, said.
“Australia’s investment is helping to lay the foundations for a sovereign capability that will keep Australians safe for decades to come. This is a concrete example of allied industrial capacity delivering real benefits for Australia."
This investment is in addition to Australia’s contribution of GBP 2.4 billion (approx. A $4.6 billion) over 10 years to expand the production capacity of Rolls-Royce Submarines.
This announcement has followed Minister Conroy’s engagement at the Australia-United Kingdom Defence Industry Dialogue (AUKDID) which was held in London.
AUKDID – which was held for the first time since 2018 – has provided an opportunity to build on areas of shared interest between Australia and the United Kingdom, including submarine industrial base cooperation.
The outcomes that have come from AUKDID, according to Minister Conroy, include a deepening cooperation on advanced radar technology, such as exploring the use of Australian radar technologies on UK projects, increasing cooperation on collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), particularly payload integration of UK weapons into the MQ-28A Ghost Bat, strengthening work on directed energy or laser weapons, and greater work on resilient supply chains and critical minerals.
"And we've also flagged an increase in a number of Australian embeds at the BAE submarine construction yard of Barrow. We're also supporting UK weapon testing of systems destined for Ukraine on Australian ranges," Minister Conroy affirmed at AUKDID.
On the deepening cooperation on advanced radar technology, it will principally be focused on Active Electronically Scanned Array radars, which are mostly in CEA's domain. More specifically, Australia will be looking into AESA radars.
Conroy also made further statements in relation to the Ghost Bat situation.
"What we're looking at now is expanding that into the European family of weapons that will potentially facilitate exports of Ghost Bat to European nations who might be interested in it," Minister Conroy indicated.
The purchases that were announced in relation to the long-lead items for AUKUS have occurred over two years and are the first parts to go into the nuclear reactors for the submarines. According to Minister Conroy, these purchases mark the start of the construction process for the reactors.
The visit has followed the Australian Government’s recently announced investment of $3.9 billion as a down payment to deliver the new Submarine Construction Yard in Osborne.
This week in Western Australia, HMS Anson, a United Kingdom Astute-class submarine, is at HMAS Stirling for maintenance, marking the first time a UK nuclear‑powered submarine has undergone a maintenance period in Australia.