Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Last week the US Navy told congress that its submarine production continues to be around half the level needed for the US to be able to supply Virginia class submarines to Australia by 2032. Given the real risk that the US won't be able to double its production in time, what is the government's alternative plan to ensure that Australia has the capability it needs, and, if we don't have an alternative plan, why not?

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. When we signed the optimal pathway with the United States and the United Kingdom, we were aware of the challenges of US production and sustainment of Virginias and the need to lift that production to see more Virginias in the water for the US Navy in order to create the space whereby Australia would be able to acquire Virginia class submarines from the United States in the early 2030s as part of the pathway to Australia acquiring a nuclear powered submarine capability.

To put that in context, what we saw going back and forth in terms of the way in which the coalition managed our future submarine acquisition in the decade that they were in power really left us with a capability gap, which is being filled by the acquisition of those Virginia class submarines in the early 2030s. That goes to the very question of what a former member for Wentworth often talks about, which is whether or not there should be a plan B, and, indeed, the former member for Wentworth was part of what was going on with the coalition, as one of the three prime ministers who were part of that government. The issue with that government then was that they were completely focused on and obsessed with plan Bs. They were in and out of a deal with Japan, then in and out of a deal with France, and it took the better part of the entirety of their government before they ended up settling on the arrangement with the United States and with the United Kingdom through AUKUS.

When you consider that acquiring a nuclear powered submarine capability is a challenge that is measured in decades, if you are focused on a plan B—and there is always a chopping and changing—then that is not a decision to walk down the path of plan B; that is a decision not to have a capability at all. I mean, unless you stick to a plan for longer than a couple of years—which the coalition were unable to do, which the former member for Wentworth was unable to do—then you don't get a capability at all.