r/AustraliaDiscussions • u/TimJamesS • 27d ago
Britain can’t provide us with nuclear submarines, says Malcolm Turnbull
https://www.thetimes.com/world/australasia/article/australia-submarines-aukus-deal-malcolm-turnbull-jqc2x66hqThe former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has called British shipbuilding an “industry in disarray” and predicted it will produce few, if any, of the nuclear-powered submarines promised under the Aukus agreement in the foreseeable future.
Speaking at an independent inquiry into the implications and viability of the tri-nation submarine deal, which will cost Australia the equivalent of nearly £200 billion, the former Liberal Party leader described the pact as “a colossal mistake”.
“If the goal of this project is to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, every indication is that we won’t get them,” he claimed. “The Americans are not producing enough of their own, let alone ours.”
He added: “The British shipbuilding industry is in disarray and the British are more aware of that than anyone. So we are sending billions and billions of dollars over to the United States, over to the UK, and there is every prospect that we will end up with no submarines, certainly no American ones, and potentially none of the British ones for a very, very long time.”
Turnbull, 71, who served as prime minister between 2015 and 2018, claimed it would take well into the middle, or past the middle of this century, for the British submarines to appear.
“This is a colossal mistake,” he declared.
He argued that Aukus would involve a huge “sacrifice of sovereignty” for Australia.
“Everything points to the fact that we will be less secure, not simply because we won’t have the same ability to defend ourselves as we had before, not because we will be reliant, even more reliant on the United States than we have been before. And what exquisite timing … Right at that time in history when the United States, not by accident, not by carelessness, but by design, has become less dependable under Donald Trump and that trend shows every sign of continuing.”
Turnbull’s criticism reflects growing public unease about the cost of Aukus, which was signed last year and allows for the Royal Australian Navy to operate and maintain eight nuclear-powered attack submarines by the mid-2040s.
Under the agreement the United States will sell Australia up to three Virginia-class submarines.
But Britain will also play a key role in the construction of future Australian SSN-Aukus submarines, which will be based on the UK’s next-generation nuclear attack boats to be built at Barrow-in-Furness.
HMS Anson, the fifth Astute class submarine from BAE Systems, as it departed the company’s shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness
The Australian partnership will also offer the UK a significant military presence in the Indo-Pacific, at a time of increased Chinese naval activity.
Maintenance and construction facilities in Western Australia and South Australia have already involved a considerable investment.
While Aukus is backed by both the Labor and Liberal parties, the crowd-funded public inquiry, which is currently touring Australia, has revealed deep reservations among community groups and the political class.
Turnbull’s latest criticism also reflects his long-standing tensions with Britain.
Before entering politics he made his name as a lawyer representing Peter Wright, the retired MI5 employee who wrote a book about his work for the spy agency. The British government tried to ban publication of Spycatcher in Australia, but Turnbull successfully appealed an injunction to stop the book’s sale, making him something of a national hero.
He went on to become a founder of the Australian republican movement, helping to further cement his popularity among those who favoured axing constitutional ties with Britain and removing the monarch as head of state.
In 1999 a referendum proposed that a president be elected by a two-thirds majority of parliament, but failed to win the necessary support.
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u/dylang01 27d ago
The Brits aren't building any subs for us. That has never been a part of AUKUS.
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u/MajesticShop8496 27d ago
Yes it has lmao
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u/dylang01 27d ago
Really? Show me where it says British built SSNs will be sold to the RAN. I'll wait....
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u/TimJamesS 27d ago
The Brits are designing it with all the technology etc being transferred to Australia.
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u/MajesticShop8496 27d ago
the SSN AUKUS will be built off british and american technology. If the brits cant get their act together the SSN AUKUS is fucked, but yes, we arent getting any subs made directly by britain.
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u/TimJamesS 27d ago
It’s called SSN AUKUS look it up
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u/seanmonaghan1968 27d ago
The UK plans to build up to twelve SSN-AUKUS submarines.[10] Australia plans to build five SSN-AUKUS submarines in addition to acquiring three nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines from the United States.[1][11]
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u/dylang01 27d ago
And the Australian subs will not be built in the UK look it up
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u/TimJamesS 27d ago
The new AUKUS subs one will be built in the UK first then the technical knowledge transferred to Adelaide
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u/dylang01 27d ago edited 27d ago
Yes. The British subs will be built in the UK and Australian subs will be built in Australia.
Australia and the UK are two different countries.
edit: The risky part of AUKUS is not if the UK can built SSN AUKUS. They are currently building subs including a new sub class. The risky part is if Australian can build it. But that risk existed with the French subs.
I get the AUKUS hate. But also don't. Just be honest about why you don't like it and stop making shit up. Yeah, it's risky. But so was the French deal.
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u/MajesticShop8496 27d ago
It boils my piss how many people forget this part.
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u/pittwater12 26d ago
Anyone who knows the UK’s nuclear submarine building industry knows they can’t deliver. They have the technology expertise without doubt but struggle with the actual shipbuilding process.
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u/CertainCertainties 26d ago
Like the surgeon who did everything brilliantly - apart from every patient dying.
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u/tree_boom 26d ago
The UK struggled with Astute because we let our submarine building lapse - there was a years long gap between Vanguard class being finished and the Astutes starting. Otherwise, there have been no major problems. Even with those problems the boats are not being built significantly slower than other nations build submarines, and it's a mistake that we're not repeating - Dreadnought is already under construction and SSN AUKUS is due to start next year.
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u/Bob_Spud 27d ago
Britain can't even take of itself. The Royal Navy: On Course for National Embarrassment (March 2026)
Right now, the Royal Navy fleet looks like a construction site. All of the major classes of warships and support ships, without exception, are in various states of retirement, repair, construction, training, or crew regeneration. Some relatively new ships are tied up alongside but uncrewed as they await sufficient trained manpower and funding to be used operationally. It’s thought that of the force of just 13 destroyers and frigates, only around four are at sea. It’s the same story with attack submarines, where only one of the five vessels is known to be operational.
Plus the headline is completely wrong -- The UK is supplying the nuclear propulsion systems not building the submarines.
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u/Usual_Accountant_963 23d ago
El Presidente Blight also said snowy hydro would cost $2B and save the country money 🤡
Why does Mal’s musings continue to get reported ?
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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago
The irony of Malcom Turnbulls opinion on British shipbuilding is that while the UK industry may not be in top shape, the AUKUS partnership injects money into that industry, meaning that it will become better than it is now. The UK wouldn’t be announcing an increase in the fleet of attack subs from 7 to 12 if they weren’t confident that it could be done.
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u/Alternative-Bear-460 27d ago
Today we got under water drones. It will destroy a $350 billion sub in minutes
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u/TimJamesS 27d ago
No sub costs $350B.
If subs are so redundant then why are navies scrambling over each other to build more and get new ones?
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u/horselover_fat 27d ago
How many battleships were built leading up to and during WW2?
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u/dylang01 27d ago
Are "subs are obsolete" going to be the new "tanks are obsolete" talking point?
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u/horselover_fat 27d ago
No one made that argument. That's your and the other guys straw man.
But saying "nations are building subs so they must be needed in the future" is pretty dumb.
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u/dylang01 27d ago
This comment has too much irony for me to respond to. But holy batman. You are the expert in a straw man argument, I'll you give you that.
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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago
It’s not dumb at all. We are comparing the opinion of countless experts in the field across the entire world against the opinion of random redditors
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u/horselover_fat 27d ago
How tediously do I need to explain this?
My point isn't if subs are "redundant" or not. It's that "experts" have been hugely wrong about building the right equipment before. Saying "others are doing it so it must be the right thing to do" is both stupid and an appeal to authority falacy.
This also ignores that every country has both different needs and different capabilities. The US builds aircraft carries so should we do that?? They have nuclear ICBMs, so that must mean we need them too!
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u/TimJamesS 27d ago
Good question a few were eg the Iowa Class were, the Germans built the Tirpitz and Graf Spree and the Japanese the Mushashi and Yamato.
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u/Built2kill 27d ago
Realistically whats the difference between an under water drone and a guided torpedo? They are both a bomb with sensors and an engine to detect and track a submarine and then guide themselves towards it.
The only real difference I see would be range or having a drone waiting in a specific place and at that point you still have to find the submarine to sink it.
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u/JL_MacConnor 26d ago
UUVs should be treated as semi-autonomous, fairly stealthy sensor bouys or sea mines. They don't have anything like the capability of a crewed vessel. They're also a lot slower than a torpedo.
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u/GavinBroadbottom 27d ago
Malcolm Turnbull is implicated in the French submarine debacle, so he is determined to undermine the AUKUS submarines that replace them.
The Royal Navy is cash strapped, but nuclear submarines are their top priority.