The U.K. and Australian governments have put pen to paper on a deal that pledges a 50-year partnership to build the SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines.
Defence ministers from both countries signed the Geelong Treaty on Saturday agreeing to collaborate for at least a half a century “on the design, build, operation, sustainment, and disposal of the two nations’ SSN-AUKUS submarines.”
Under the agreement an Astute-class submarine will also pay regular visits to HMAS Stirling under the ‘Submarine Rotational Force – West’ programme.
The joint statement noted: “The treaty builds on the strong foundation of trilateral cooperation between Australia, the U.K. and the United States, advancing the shared objectives of the AUKUS partnership. It will enable the development of SSN-AUKUS and resilient trilateral supply chains.”
It added: “The treaty will enable Australia and the U.K. to deliver a cutting-edge undersea capability through the SSN-AUKUS programme, and in doing so, support stability and security in the Euro Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific for decades to come, drive defence as an engine for growth across our two nations, create thousands of jobs, build our respective submarine industrial bases and supply chains, and provide new opportunities for industry partners.”
As per a separate U.K. Government statement, the partnership is expected to support over 21,000 U.K. jobs and generate a potential £20 billion exports windfall across the next 25 years, creating about 7,000 new jobs in the process.
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy commented: “The U.K.-Australia relationship is like no other, and in our increasingly volatile and dangerous world, our anchoring friendship has real impact in the protection of global peace and prosperity.
“Our new bilateral AUKUS treaty is an embodiment of that — safeguarding a free and open Indo Pacific whilst catalysing growth for both our countries.”
In a separate but related announcement, the Australian Government also announced it had awarded 40 grants totalling more than A$17.3 million (about £8.5 million) to domestic firms “delivering priority defence capabilities” under its Defence Industry Development Grants (DIDG) programme.
It said the Australian Submarine Agency was handing out six grants to support innovation across Australia and modernise critical manufacturing areas in support of the AUKUS submarine programme.
Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy commented: ‘We are backing Australian businesses and backing Australian workers to deliver the capabilities our Defence Force needs — now and into the future.”
- You can read more details about the treaty on the U.K. MoD website and more about the grants on the Defence Australia website