Defence Minister Richard Marles: Adelaide AUKUS shipyard on track despite UK warning

Warning AUKUS risks being derailed, the House of Commons report says building the nuclear-powered submarines in partnership with Australia “will undoubtedly stretch the UK’s defence industrial capacity” and “timely investment” in key British shipyards “is critical”.

But the report says creating a new submarine yard at Osborne, in Adelaide’s northwest, “is on a different scale” and the UK’s defence ministry “recognised the enormity of this challenge”.

Responding to the report, Mr Marles said Australia was “really comfortable” with the UK’s contribution to AUKUS, which includes building the first future submarine at BAE Systems’ Barrow-in-Furness shipyard.

“We are on track to deliver AUKUS in terms of all of its milestones, and that includes the construction of the submarine yard at the Osborne Naval Shipyard, where we will be building SSN-AUKUS with BAE Systems,” Mr Marles said on Tuesday.

“We’re very confident about that, and we’re very confident about the role that the UK is playing.”

The UK report warned “the scale and ambition of AUKUS means that it needs visible political leadership from the Prime Minister (Sir Keir Starmer) to counter the political drift that could see it derailed”.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was “support overwhelmingly from the British government, from Prime Minister Keir Starmer down”, along with UK defence personnel.

“AUKUS is, to quote President Trump, full steam ahead. And I’m very confident that it will be so,” he said.

Mr Albanese and Premier Peter Malinauskas on February 15 announced more than $30bn would be ploughed into building the world’s most advanced nuclear-powered submarine shipyard at Osborne, employing 4000 people in the nation’s biggest construction project.

Mr Malinauskas on Tuesday said the $368bn AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project, centred on Adelaide, was “the single biggest industrial undertaking in the history of our federation” and that “every month there’ll be a new story about the complexities being confronted that have to be overcome”.

“What’s important is that the people in charge of this program, at a federal level in Australia, but also nationally in the UK and the US, will just keep on getting on with the job,” he said.