Former prime minister Scott Morrison has backed the move to buy only second-hand submarines from the United States, rather than a mix of new and old vessels as originally planned, as he called for Anthony Albanese to do more to sell the benefits of AUKUS to the public.
The Defence Department boss, navy chief and senior Albanese government ministers said it was always Australia’s preference to acquire three in-service Virginia-class submarines from the US, a claim lampooned by the Coalition and the Greens.
Morrison – who created the AUKUS pact with his American and British counterparts in 2021 – said he was relaxed about the decision to no longer acquire a new and upgraded Virginia-class submarine from 2038, as was announced in late 2023.
“I can see the case for simplifying things by sticking with the same platform, I understand that,” Morrison told this masthead.
“There will be no real diminution of the ultimate capability.”
He said it was important to remember the Virginia-class boats were intended to be a bridging capability until the arrival of the new SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines Australia is designing with the UK and plans to build in Adelaide.
“AUKUS is not the Virginias. It is an important part of AUKUS but not AUKUS itself,” he said.
Morrison reiterated his calls for Albanese to do more to explain the strategic rationale for AUKUS as a counterweight to China’s growing military might in Asia, rather than its benefits to the local manufacturing sector, to ensure the public does not lose support for the project.
“The purpose of AUKUS is to provide a strategic deterrent in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
“It’s not a jobs program, it’s a strategic program to deter a potential adversary and opponent. When you can’t explain that it becomes hard to sell.”
He said he understood the debate about AUKUS’s merits, but was worried about a sense of defeatism among some AUKUS critics.
“Let’s not surrender because we think we’re not up to it. We have to be careful not to talk down Australia,” he said.
Speaking earlier in the day at the Morrison told the Salus VC Resilience Summit in Sydney it was important to remember the US was providing Australia with the “holy grail” of military technology in nuclear-powered submarines.
“Plenty of other countries had tried and asked repeatedly,” Morrison said. “The answer was no.”
Navy chief Mark Hammond told Senate estimates hearings on Tuesday night: “From a sustainment perspective, it is much more efficient to maintain three platforms of the same configuration baseline.
“It means you only need one training system, one supply chain. It’s much more efficient.”
He added: “From a capability manager’s perspective, simplification is my friend. So three of the same platform is a better outcome than a mix of platforms.”
Newly appointed Defence Department secretary Meghan Quinn said: “Australia’s position is that we would always have a preference for three in-service [submarines].”
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy told Sky News: “We’ve made it very clear that that was our preferred position when we were negotiating this arrangement in ’22 and ’23.”
“[The US has] arrived at new data, they’ve improved their maintenance performance of their in-service Virginias, which meant that they felt comfortable releasing a third in-service submarine,” he said.
“So this is the Trump Administration confirming support for AUKUS, saying, ‘Yes, your preferred approach is now our preferred approach’. This is a win for Australia and it’s a win for AUKUS.”
Conroy said former cabinet minister Ed Husic “got his facts wrong” by claiming the agreement Labor MPs signed up to in 2021 had changed because there was no detail about acquiring Virginia-class submarines at the time.
Coalition defence spokesman James Paterson said Labor could not “have it both ways” by claiming the new plan was better after describing the previous plan as the “optimal pathway” for AUKUS.
Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge said: “I don’t think anyone should believe any of the spin coming out of the Albanese government … Not only are we seeing this sort of destruction of political trust by Labor spinning and revisiting past history, but we’re actually seeing the fundamentals of AUKUS fraying in real time.”
He said AUKUS risked making Australia “a bit player in a US-China war” because of their ability to travel far from Australia’s shores.
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X, Facebook or email.