As the region around Australia continues to destabilise, Defence is gearing up to reveal how it will fill the gap between its ageing Collins submarines and a new nuclear-powered fleet slated to not be fully operational until the 2040s.
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On the first anniversary of the AUKUS technology sharing pact, Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles will say Defence is on track to reveal in March next year an optimal pathway for developing its nuclear-powered fleet.
The government, however, does not want the taskforce to propose an "orphan" design, like it did with the Collins submarine, that is not operated by its allies.
Choosing the location of the new east coast submarine base from among Brisbane, Newcastle, and Port Kembla is not one of the questions that will be answered in the revealed initial plan next year.
Australia's economic security as a trading island nation depends on building its own nuclear-power submarines and becoming recognised as safe stewards of nuclear materials, the government will say on Friday.
"We need a highly capable Defence Force which has the rest of the world take us seriously and enables us to do all the normal peaceful activities that are so important for our economy," Mr Marles said.
"And for us as a trading island nation, trade is fundamental to that. And therefore, making sure that we are able to have freedom of navigation of the seas and of the air above them is really central to our economy, and these capabilities going forward."
Mr Marles sees an ambitious step up for Australia to have a seamless defence procurement base with its partners, which are also facing heavy construction workloads. The UK was also shifting from its Astute class to a new design.
"It's obviously much better if you are operating a platform which other countries operate as there is a shared experience and a shared industrial base to sustain it," he said.
The multi-agency Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce, headed by Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, met this week with a delegation of its two partners, the UK and United States.
Defence cannot rely on their ally's shipyards, officials have been told, necessitating the need for Australia to build its own industrial base. Defence also expressed that it needs to more than double the number of submariners available to crew the boats.
Vice Admiral Mead said Australia's strategic requirements have needed to evolve with the partnership. "In the 12 months since the announcement of AUKUS, the resolve of Australia, the UK and the US has only strengthened as the strategic environment has continued to deteriorate," he said.
Vice Admiral Mead said those partners were helping Defence to understand the particular skills and workforce numbers required for a self-sufficient nuclear-powered submarine fleet, from building, operating, and sustaining them.
"We are developing career pathways for our submariners that will include attendance at UK and US nuclear schools, experience operating UK and US nuclear-powered submarines and secondments in UK and US nuclear agencies," the admiral said
Personnel exchanges will go both ways, and won't just involve submariners, he said. It will also include personnel in headquarters, technical labs, shipyards and sustainment sheds.
Strong regulations and safe stewardship of nuclear material was a key demand of the AUKUS partners. These would also meet the requirements of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But experts are concerned that none of the key questions about the submarine plan have been answered in the past year, including how it will satisfy the strong reservations of nuclear policy analysts and international opposition led by China.
This week China's Foreign Affairs Ministry was highly critical of the atomic energy agency, for ignoring its concerns for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in a "lopsided" report into Australia's submarine plans.
A new report on the AUKUS anniversary from the strategic think tank ASPI said the deterioration in the strategic environment over the past year has only reinforced the need for AUKUS to succeed, and in particular the development of submarines was a critical and long-term endeavour.
China's complaints to the IAEA and efforts to politicise, complicate and delay the process were unlikely to gain traction, the report found.
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