Asked by Labor senator Kimberley Kitching whether this meant the Collins-class boats would still be in the water in 2040 or 2050,Vice Admiral Noonan said:“Yes senator,potentially.”
The opposition’s defence spokesman,Brendan O’Connor,said the revelations raised a number of serious questions,including whether the submarines could undergo two life-of-type extensions.
“If enhanced submarine capability is critical to our national security,why would we still have 50-year-old Collins-class vessels in 2050?” he said. “In their ninth year of government,they still can’t answer the most elementary questions about the current submarines’ use.”
Vice Admiral Noonan also confirmed American and British nuclear-propelled submarines might be based in Australia in the coming decades while Australia developed expertise in their nuclear propulsion technology.
He said there had been no discussions about basing American or British submarines in Australia but it was something he envisioned under the AUKUS agreement.
“I do expect as a result of the AUKUS announcement that we will certainly be keen,I’m certainly keen,to see a greater visibility of visits by UK and US submarines in order to give my people exposure to the sort of submarines and technology that we will be acquiring and ultimately to get experience in nuclear technologies,” he said.
And he said Australia was not yet able to access certain parts of British and American submarines because of the sensitive technology. Vice Admiral Noonan said the Defence-led taskforce assessing how to develop nuclear-powered submarines over the next 18 months would work on how to access this technology.
“We are unable to access the back end of the submarine under our current security arrangements with the US,” he said.
The main justification for going with the US and Britain is that their submarines use highly enriched uranium and the reactor does not need to be refuelled for the 33-year lifespan of the boat. If Australia were to build nuclear-powered submarines with the French,the nuclear fuel in the core of the boat’s reactors would have to be replaced every 10 years.
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But a number of defence experts and former politicians,including ex-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull,haveraised doubts about the claim that the reactor would never need to be accessed and suggested Australia would need some kind of nuclear industry to maintain the fleet.
Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union assistant national secretary Glenn Thompson told the Senate hearing he didn’t know of “any piece of equipment that is set-and-forget for 33 years”.
He also criticised the government for a lack of consultation with unions,saying thousands of jobs were at risk from the cancellation of the French contract.
“We’ll lose the skills,the jobs,the digital infrastructure,the SME[small and medium enterprises] strategy,research and innovation,” he said. “We trashed Australia’s reputation as a nation with which to conduct business. We’ve discarded our sovereign risk in addition to our relationship with the French.”
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