A UK House of Commons Defence Committee report pointing out the unlikelihood of successful AUKUS delivery has just been published. What’s the scam?
The scam is the Australian Government continuing to insist on spending hundreds of billions on a faltering submarine-building program while cutting billions from the NDIS.
The 65-page report – a year in the making – found that delivering SSN-AUKUS will be a lengthy and complex undertaking requiring a sustained financial commitment from the UK government across several electoral cycles. The report stated, “It is deeply concerning that there are signs that
the investment pipeline that underpins that commitment has already faltered.
The report comes against a backdrop of the UK only being able to put one of its nuclear attack submarines to sea and the Royal Navy being in such a moribund state that it is struggling to find surface ship assets to protect its own interests in the eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf.
The UK report mentions the significant risks associated with the US meeting its end of the AUKUS deal, too.
“The UK is not alone in facing challenges in reinvigorating an ailing submarine industrial base. The US is also grappling with decades of underinvestment and a depleted workforce. Build rates for the Virginia-class submarine have consistently failed to meet procurement targets: build rates have stood at 1.2 boats a year since 2022 against the 2.33 that the US Congressional Research Service has been warning for over two years that the US will be required to meet US Navy and AUKUS requirements.”
For the ministerial wing at Australian Parliament House, it’s just another report to be ignored as the Government ships billions more to both the US and UK to try to fix their shipyards.
Rudd talking the AUKUS talk in Washington, but is the US walking?