US to send only used nuclear subs to Australia in amended defence deal
Sunday, 31 May 2026 https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2026/05/31/us-to-send-only-used-nuclear-subs-to-australia-in-amended-defence-deal
SINGAPORE: Australia will receive only used nuclear-powered submarines from the United States as part of an agreement to “streamline” the AUKUS deal, with the move branded on Sunday (May 31) as a “cost-effective” measure by Defence Minister Richard Marles.
The two nations — together with the third partner in their security pact, Britain — met at Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue, which brings together top defence officials and experts from about 45 countries.
Under the 2021 AUKUS deal, Australia is expected to receive at least three so-called “Virginia-class” nuclear-powered submarines from the United States within 15 years.
Australia had been expecting to receive two used submarines and one new one, but the countries announced Saturday that all three will now be in-service vessels from the US Navy stock.
When asked why Canberra was now receiving only used equipment, Marles, who is also deputy prime minister, told reporters on Sunday it would be more cost-effective.
“In the context of a very complicated endeavour, we need to place a premium on simplicity,” said Marles, who added that the submarines will also be the same model.
“I cannot overstate the significance of that, both in terms of the submariners who are operating them, but also the people who are working on them to sustain those submarines,” Marles said.
“It is definitely cost-effective. And to be clear, this is a very expensive programme… and so we are trying to find every cost-effective option as we walk down this path.”
In a joint statement on Saturday, Marles, US Minister for Defence Pete Hegseth, and the UK Secretary for Defence John Healey confirmed the tweak to the submarine agreement.
“The deputy prime minister and secretaries welcomed the proposed approach to streamline Australia’s acquisition of Virginia-class submarines (VCS), simplifying supply chain management, operational and maintenance requirements, and maximising cost efficiencies,” the statement said.
“This approach would enable Australia to acquire three in-service VCS in lieu of a mixture of new and in-service VCS variants.”
The US Navy has 24 Virginia-class vessels but American shipyards are struggling to meet production targets set at two new boats each year.
In the United States, critics have questioned why Washington would sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia without stocking its own military first.
The AUKUS submarine programme lies at the heart of Australia’s defence strategy and could cost up to US$235 billion over 30 years, according to government forecasts. – AFP
Sunday, 31 May 2026 |
Nuclear powers are expanding their arsenals instead of disarming. Australia doesn’t have to be complicit in this
The Conversation 25th May 2026
Hundreds of diplomats from almost every country just met for four weeks at United Nations headquarters in New York to review the most comprehensive nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the world. And they agreed to absolutely nothing.
After thousands of interventions, working papers, statements, national reports, side events, preparatory conferences, closed-door meetings and consultations, the delegates couldn’t even reach consensus on the most hollowed-out statement.
Nearly all of the 190 signatories genuflect to the importance of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Yet, this is the third review conference in a row that has failed to achieve any agreed outcome. Since the treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995, only two conferences, in 2000 and 2010, reached any agreement at all……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
What Australia can do
Smaller, non-nuclear states can make a difference, though, if they stand behind their commitments.
Australia, for one, voiced its disappointment in the failure of the conference to achieve any results. In a short statement, the government said it was “steadfast in its support of the NPT”.
But Australia can – and must – do better than issuing mildly worded statements, especially as it is contributing to escalating nuclear risks with its actions.
For example, the RAAF Base Tindal will soon host American nuclear-capable B-52 bombers. US submarines will also permanently rotate through Australian ports from 2027 as part of the AUKUS agreement. While not nuclear-armed now, those US submarines will be able to carry a new nuclear-tipped cruise missile by 2032. Australia maintains a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of ambiguity on nuclear weapons, meaning the US doesn’t have to confirm or deny whether its military craft are actually carrying them. Nuclear powers are expanding their arsenals instead of disarming. Australia doesn’t have to be complicit in this
Israel Kidnapped Gaza Flotilla Activists, A Father Demands Answers | The West Report.
21 May 2026 The West Report
Gemma O’Toole was aboard the Freedom Flotilla when it was intercepted by Israeli forces. Her father, Patrick Kaiser, says the family went more than 64 hours without hearing from her, while the main footage they had seen showed detained activists zip-tied, placed in stress positions and taunted by Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir. As Australia summons the Israeli ambassador and condemns Ben-Gvir’ behaviour, Gemma’s family is calling for stronger action, sanctions, and a serious reckoning with Australia’s selective approach to international law and human rights.
Secret documents reveal preferred Australian nuclear submarine base – and warn it could be a military target
“It’s no surprise that people don’t want to live next to a bunch of floating nuclear reactors with a big military target on them. It’s also no surprise that the state and federal governments are desperate to hide this truth from the public.”
Port Kembla residents will likely resist base due to risk of nuclear accident and potential as target for ‘military adversaries’, documents state
Ben Doherty, 16 May 26, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/16/secret-documents-reveal-preferred-australian-nuclear-submarine-base-port-kembla
A proposed nuclear submarine base in Port Kembla “could be a target for Australian military adversaries”, previously secret New South Wales government documents have revealed.
The documents, prepared by the NSW cabinet office and premier’s department, identify Port Kembla – 75km south of Sydney – as the preferred east coast base for Australia’s proposed nuclear submarine fleet. No site has been announced, but speculation has focused on Brisbane, Newcastle and Port Kembla.
But a Port Kembla base is likely to face fierce public resistance, the documents, tabled in the NSW parliament under an order to produce from Greens MLC Abigail Boyd, state.
“Residents are likely to perceive the east coast nuclear base as a source of risk due to there being nuclear reactors on board the submarines and the military base being a potential military target,” the NSW government analysis says.
“The East Coast Base (ECNB) will harbour submarines that have nuclear reactors fuelled by highly enriched uranium on board. In the event of a military conflict the ECNB could be a target for Australian military adversaries.
“For these reasons NSW residents may perceive the ECNB similarly to a nuclear power station as a source of environmental disaster risk.”
A significant proportion of the Port Kembla population have already expressed opposition to the proposed base. In September, more than 40 organisations signed the Port Kembla Declaration, insisting their community should not be the site of a nuclear base, arguing it would endanger their community.
The documents, only made public on Friday, date from the Perrottet government between 2022 and 2023.
The current minister for planning and public spaces Paul Scully said: “No work is being undertaken by the NSW Government in relation to this matter.”
The federal government announced in March 2022 it intended to build an east coast nuclear base to station the nuclear-powered conventionally armed submarines it intends to buy and then build as part of the Aukus agreement with the UK and US.
Currently, those proposed submarines – if they arrive under Australian command, as scheduled, from 2032 – will be stationed in South Australia and Western Australia, but the federal government has consistently maintained an east coast base is vital to Australia’s strategic interests.
The federal government has previously said a decision on where to site the east coast nuclear base would be taken “later in the decade”, but the NSW government documents state the commonwealth has “committed to ensuring a decision on the location of the base is undertaken by the end of 2023, to be operational by 2040”.
A preliminary cost-benefit analysis by NSW government officials identified Port Kembla as the best site for an east coast nuclear base. It said a base in Port Kembla for nuclear powered submarines, as well as surface naval vessels, would bring an economic benefit of $426m to the state through improved infrastructure, community services and facilities, and increased economic activity such as “growth in highly technical and high-paying jobs”.
The NSW government documents state Port Kembla’s outer harbour “presents a viable alternative as a naval base, with the capacity to accommodate increased berthing, a dry dock and a submarine facility”.
But the NSW government concedes some residents will have to leave their homes, local business could be negatively affected, and rail and road travel worsened. A nuclear submarine base “is likely to have negative impact on the amenity of the local area”, the documents state.
Those closest to the base will be most impacted.
“Residents in proximity will perceive the ECNB as a risk to their community’s health and the local environment.”
The NSW government documents consider the perception of risk of a nuclear accident.
“The probability of a nuclear accident at a submarine base is also reduced by the fact submarines are only sometimes harbouring at the base,” they state.
“On the other hand, a nuclear submarine base is more likely to be a military target – and could be perceived riskier for that reason.”
The documents argue that the public’s “risk perception” of a nuclear submarine base compared to a nuclear power plant is unknown without more detailed research.
Nuclear submarines may be less risky because their nuclear reactors are much smaller than the nuclear reactors at nuclear power stations.
“However, nuclear submarines may be far riskier because they use a highly enriched uranium that is more like the uranium used in nuclear warheads than the uranium used in nuclear reactors and they store enough uranium to operate the nuclear submarine for over 30 years.”
The east coast nuclear base is expected to be at least twice the size of the Western Sydney International Airport project, the NSW government documents state. It is expected to be operational by 2040.
“The department of defence estimates that more than $10bn will be needed for facility and infrastructure requirements to transition from Collins to the future nuclear-powered submarines, including the new east coast submarine base.”
The federal Greens senator David Shoebridge, spokesperson on defence and foreign affairs, said the documents show that both the NSW and federal governments know that a nuclear submarine base will be “damaging and dangerous for the community”.
“It’s no surprise that people don’t want to live next to a bunch of floating nuclear reactors with a big military target on them. It’s also no surprise that the state and federal governments are desperate to hide this truth from the public.”
Shoebridge argued the Labor government was “putting a target” on the largest population conurbation in Australia – about 7 million people who live between Newcastle and the Illawarra.
“This, and any other Aukus base, doesn’t make us safer, as we have seen in the war on Iran, US bases make countries targets.
“We are watching the US actively driving war and instability around the world and instead of distancing Australia from that conflict, we have Labor, One Nation and the Coalition inviting that into our homes.”
The Guardian has put questions to the NSW premier’s office and to the federal department of defence.
It is understood the Government agreed in-principle to the Defence Strategic Review recommendation that an east coast facility be established for Australia’s future submarine capability. The Government has said further decisions on the east coast base won’t be made until the 2030s.
A spokesperson for deputy prime minister, Richard Marles said no decision on the location for this facility had been made.
“As the Government has previously made clear, the timeframe for making a decision is not until the 2030s,” the spokesperson said.
If AUKUS were NDIS (National Disability Insurance Schemes )? – Rising cost of elusive subs submerged in budget
“No submarines are coming to Australia from the US, despite the billions we’re spending.
by Rex Patrick | May 14, 2026, https://michaelwest.com.au/if-aukus-were-ndis-rising-cost-of-elusive-subs-submerged-in-budget/
The price of the AUKUS submarine program is rising while the chances of subs being delivered is going down. Rex Patrick on the Budget subs spending.
It’s quite hard, indeed impossible, to work out how much the AUKUS submarine program is costing the taxpayer, with few details and much hidden across multiple budgets.
We’ll start with the operation of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA). The total appropriation to run ASA over the next four years (FY 2026-27 and forward estimates) is $2.35B, which is up from last year’s budget and forward estimates at $1.71B.
“That’s a $37% increase.“
If ASA were the NDIS, the Government would have announced fundamental cuts “to secure its future, so it grows in a sustainable way”.
But there are a number of additional costs spread across other budgets – with no breakdown specifically to AUKUS. For instance, the cost of running the Australian Federal Police’s AUKUS protective security command, as revealed by MWM earlier this year.
Added to that is the cost of the Australian Nuclear Science and technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) provision of expert advice, the Australian Radioactive Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency’s (ARPANSA) provision of safety research, advice and codes and standards.
The Attorney-General is spending money on legal services to ensure AUKUS is complying with Australia’s nuclear non-proliferation obligations, while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is spending $43m this year and $44m next year on diplomacy to try to convince the International Atomic Energy Agency to declare the AUKUS program is compliant with Australia’s Comprehensive (Nuclear) Safeguards Agreement.
Funding is also being thrown at the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, the Department of Education, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, the new National Environment Protection Agency and the Department of Finance,
“almost everyone’s getting a piece of the action.”
Program advancement
More money being set aside for the actual delivery of the capability, with the total amount of money spent on gone from $2.9B in 2024-25 to $8.2B in 2025-26. A lot of that new expenditure has gone to the US and UK for to employ Americans and Brits, and to improve their shipyards.
“By June 2027 we will have spent $11B on AUKUS without so much as a periscope to show for it.“
Defence is spending money as quickly as they can, faster than they and the government have told the public they would. It might be they have learned something from the French Attack Class program, which was cancelled by Scott Morrison after burning $4B in taxpayers’ money; the lesson being that $4B in sunk cost is not enough to prevent a program from being terminated.
By the end of next year Defence will have spent more than $13B. Surely no government would cancel a program after spending that much money!
On the submarine construction and support infrastructure front, the Government has been keen to announce billions upon billions of dollars in expenditure on submarine facilities, but then put budgets amounts of ‘not for publication’ in the budget documents; Announcements good … budget details bad!
No subs for us…
One of the few nice things about the US system of government is that Congress is a totally separate arm of government to the executive.
The US Congress appropriates all money to government (as is the case in Australia), but because Secretaries (our equivalent of ministers) don’t sit in the Congress, they force Agencies to disclose a lot more details in their budgets.
In our budget documents we get one column in a table to explain the procurement of Virginia Class nuclear powered submarines; in the US Defense budget document there are 20 pages.
In our budget documents there is no indication of when the Royal Australian Navy will get a Virginia Class submarine. In the US Defense Budget document, every Virginia sub delivery date is specified, to the month.
What the US Defense budget papers do tell, apart from delivery dates, is that the best the US is hoping for is a submarine delivery rate of 1.7 boats per annum over the next decade, which is short of the 2 boats per annum necessary to meet their needs, let alone Australia’s.
US law states that their Navy cannot transfer a submarine to Australia if it would adversely affect their own undersea warfare capability.
“No submarines are coming to Australia from the US, despite the billions we’re spending.“
The delivery of AUKUS SSN subs from the UK, according to a new UK Parliamentary report, is not likely to happen either, yet The Dept of Defence spends onwards, with hope being their primary procurement risk mitigation strategy.
No retirement for Collins
In 2009 the Rudd Government announced we were going to get 12 new submarines to replace our 6 Collins Class subs that were due to retire in 2025. However, they can’t be retired because
“Defence has delivered absolutely zero subs to the Navy in those 17 years.”
And so this year we’ll spend $921m on keeping our Collin subs at sea. That’s down on the $1B spent last year, but is grossly expensive compared to other submarine forces around the world. As anyone who tries to keep an old car on the road, with no source of spare parts, knows, it’s expensive.
And the annual costs of keeping the subs at sea doesn’t include a Life of Type Extension (LOTE) to try to deal with obsolescence. That is a separate program which has cost the taxpayer $519m so far, and will cost us another $262m over the next 12 months. The total outlay for the LOTE could reach $11B.
And if the cost spent on not much capability isn’t enough, the potential cost of nuclear waste storage may run into hundreds of billions. At least that won’t happen if the subs don’t appear…
Rex Patrick
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.”
Australians continue Gaza aid mission despite recent kidnappings, beatings
15 May 2026 AIMN Editorial, https://theaimn.net/australians-continue-gaza-aid-mission-despite-recent-kidnappings-beatings/
11 Australians departed from Türkiye on Thursday night (Australian time) in the final phase of the Global Sumud Flotilla mission to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and break Israel’s illegal naval blockade. They are joined by around 500 participants from almost 50 countries.
Organisers say interception remains a significant risk from Friday night onwards as vessels sail through international waters toward Gaza.
Five of the 11 Australians currently sailing were illegally intercepted by the Israeli navy two weeks ago while traveling from Italy to Greece. 22 flotilla vessels were intercepted and destroyed, and crew members were abducted and held on board an Israeli prison ship for almost two days at sea, reporting violence, abuse and theft of their passports.
Following their release to Greek authorities in Crete, activists have vowed to continue the mission.
The 11 Australians sailing from Türkiye to Gaza are:
● Juliet Lamont
● Isla Lamont
● Anny Mokotow
● Sam Woripa Watson
● Zack Schofield
● Dr Bianca Pullman Webb
● Neve O’Connor
● Surya McEwan
● Helen O’Sullivan
● Violet Coco
● Gemma O’Toole
● Cameron Tribe
Medical professional Dr Bianca Pullman Webb reports that:
“The siege hasn’t ended, the genocide hasn’t ended and Israel continues its crimes with impunity. Breaking the siege is more important than ever. Challenging the siege is the least I can do as a person of conscience. Palestinians, including my medical colleagues, deserve to live and work in safety and freedom.
“I’m tired of the genocide and international inaction. The community on the flotilla and what we’re doing gives me hope.”
Nakba Day and National Solidarity Rallies
The flotilla’s departure coincides with Nakba remembrance events. Large rallies are planned across Australia this weekend, connecting the maritime mission with broader public calls for humanitarian access and justice for Palestinians.
About the Global Sumud Flotilla
The Global Sumud Flotilla is a civilian-led international initiative bringing together activists, medical professionals and humanitarian advocates to deliver aid to Gaza and draw attention to the ongoing blockade and humanitarian crisis.
Social media video of Australians speaking to why they are sailing
Aukus costs balloon with more cash and staff for submarine agency amid ongoing search for nuclear waste dump
Labor has announced funding for Australian Submarine Agency will jump to $512m in next financial year amid concerns the sovereign submarine fleet may never arrive
Ben Doherty, Tue 12 May 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/may/12/australia-federal-budget-2026-aukus-submarines-nuclear-defence-spending
The budget for Australia’s contentious Aukus deal has ballooned by more than $430m over four years, with the agency charged with securing the country’s nuclear-powered submarines requiring a massive injection of funding and staffing.
The Australian Submarine Agency’s resourcing for next financial year will jump by a third – from $385m to $512m.
Staffing at the ASA is also set to jump, from about 883 positions to 1,209 next year, an increase of 37%.
The 2025-26 budget papers forecast the agency having total resourcing of $1.7bn for the four years to 2028-29. This year’s budget has expanded that forecast to more than $2.13bn for the same time period, an increase of $431m.Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email
In the previous budget, ASA’s total annual budget peaked at $529m in 2026-27. It will now peak at $641m, two years later in 2028-29.
Aukus is the trilateral deal signed by the Morrison government with the United States and United Kingdom, the so-called “Pillar One” which promises to deliver Australia its own fleet of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. The budget papers say the Aukus agreement is a “prudent response to deteriorating strategic circumstances”.
“Aukus partners have a shared commitment to the partnership and its importance in promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific through an enhanced collective capacity to deter aggression and contribute to stability, peace, and prosperity in the region.”
The budget says for a maritime nation such as Australia, a submarine capability is critical for the nation’s defence and for “working with our partners”.
“The stealth, range, speed and endurance of these submarines is unmatched, and will ensure we have a potent submarine capability for decades to come.”
The 2026-27 budget also addresses another outstanding Aukus issue, that of nuclear waste management over millennia.
Australia has not identified a permanent storage site for the nuclear waste generated by its nuclear-powered submarine fleet, including the high-level radioactive waste from the reactor core and spent fuel, which will remain toxic for thousands of years.
Successive federal governments have spent three decades unsuccessfully trying to establish a nuclear waste site. In 2023, the defence minister, Richard Marles, committed to publicly outlining a process for identifying a waste site “within 12 months”. No plan, or site, has yet been identified. Marles has said a site will be identified on defence land, current or future.
The 2026-27 budget earmarks $11.9m over two years for the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency to assist “in developing advice to inform Australia’s future radioactive waste management and disposal pathways”.
Industry experts and defence analysts have raised concern that Australia’s sovereign submarine fleet may never arrive in Australia.
The government’s “optimal pathway” for Aukus has the US selling Australia three Virginia class submarines – two secondhand and one new – beginning in the early 2030s.
But, given stubbornly sclerotic rates of submarine building in the US, the Congressional Research Office has openly considered that, instead of the US selling any Virginia-class submarines to Australia, it would rotate its own US-commanded vessels through Australian ports.
For the past 15 years, US shipyards have built submarines at a rate of between 1.1 and 1.2 boats a year. The US fleet currently has only three-quarters of the submarines it needs, and would need to double its current build-rate to supply any boats to Australia at all.
But the backbone of Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered fleet is dependent upon the UK designing and delivering the first of a new class of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine: the SSN Aukus.
The Royal Navy’s first Aukus submarine is slated to be complete in the “late 2030s”. Australia will build its first Aukus submarine, based on the UK design, in Adelaide.
That boat – the first of five to be built domestically – is scheduled to be in the water in the early 2040s.
But the UK’s shipbuilding industry is even more moribund, hollowed out by decades of underinvestment and neglect.
At the outbreak of the current US-Israel war with Iran, the UK had only one of its six-strong fleet of attack submarines at sea. The HMS Anson, visiting Australia, was hurriedly recalled to the northern hemisphere.
The UK must also prioritise – before it builds the first Aukus – building one further Astute class attack submarine, and four Dreadnought class nuclear ballistic submarines at its sole submarine-building yard, at Barrow-in-Furness.
Into the 2050s, Aukus is estimated to cost Australia $368bn, including about $4.6bn to be given to each of the UK and US to boost their submarine-building rates.
South Australian manufacturing firm enters US naval nuclear supply chain
Australian Manufacturing By Kate B., May 12, 2026
South Australia’s defence manufacturing sector has reached a new milestone, with Adelaide-based Century Engineering becoming the first Australian company to secure export contracts within the United States naval nuclear supply chain.
The contracts, announced by the SA Government, will see Century Engineering manufacture precision-engineered cranks for use in US aircraft carriers through an agreement with HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding operation in Virginia. Production is expected to begin within weeks.
The announcement comes as new Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed South Australia’s defence industry generated a record $2.015 billion in gross value added during 2024-25, up 4 per cent from the previous year and more than double the $977 million recorded in 2019-20.
The SA Government said Century Engineering secured the work after qualifying to US naval nuclear standards through the Australian Submarine Supplier Qualification (AUSSQ) Program, delivered by H&B Defence on behalf of HII and the Australian Submarine Agency.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the contract demonstrated the opportunities emerging from the AUKUS partnership for local manufacturing businesses.
“What is happening at Century Engineering is a shining example of the transformative opportunity AUKUS presents for South Australian manufacturing,” Malinauskas said…………………
Malinauskas said the work was supported by the South Australian and federal governments and would help develop “a highly complex export industry” while sustaining long-term jobs.
According to the ABS data cited by the government, South Australia led all major states on a per capita basis for both defence economic activity and defence employment, generating approximately $1,060 in defence gross value added per person……………………………… https://www.australianmanufacturing.com.au/south-australian-manufacturing-firm-enters-us-naval-nuclear-supply-chain/
The IDF Kidnapped and Assaulted an Australian Citizen in International Waters | Michael West media,
2 May 2026 The West Report playlist
Australian activist Zack Schofield recounts the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, seized on the high seas roughly 600 nautical miles from Israel while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. He describes detention aboard a prison ship, allegations of violence by Israeli forces, and the broader legal and political implications of the operation. The account raises serious questions about maritime law, the treatment of civilians, and Australia’s ongoing support for Israel, as pressure builds on the government to respond.
UK parliament’s AUKUS inquiry report questions if Britain can keep nuclear submarine promises.
By Riley Stuart and Europe correspondent Elias Clure in London, Tue 28 Apr, 26, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-28/aukus-report-released-by-house-of-commons-defence-committee/106613750
In short:
The House of Commons Defence Committee has released its report on the AUKUS defence pact after launching an inquiry last year.
While the report was broadly supportive of AUKUS, it also “laid bare the scale of the endeavour that will be required to deliver it”.
What’s next?
There have been calls to hold a public inquiry into AUKUS in Australia too, although right now one has not been announced.
British politicians have cast doubt on their country’s ability to develop and deliver nuclear submarines promised as part of the AUKUS defence pact.
The House of Commons Defence Committee on Tuesday released the findings of its year-long review into the trilateral partnership.
While the report was broadly supportive of AUKUS, it also “laid bare the scale of the endeavour that will be required to deliver it”.
As part of the deal, the United Kingdom and Australia are working together to design and build a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarine, known as SSN-AUKUS, scheduled to enter service in the late 2030s and the early 2040s.
“For the UK, delivering SSN-AUKUS will be a lengthy and complex undertaking requiring a sustained financial commitment from government across several electoral cycles,” the report noted.
“It is deeply concerning that there are signs that the investment pipeline that underpins that commitment has already faltered.”
The report urged the UK government to devote more money to the partnership.
“Shortfalls or delays in funding risk a failure to deliver SSN-AUKUS on time, with potentially severe consequences for UK and wider Euro-Atlantic security, and our standing with our trilateral partners,” it read.
While the White House has reiterated its commitment to the partnership, and Australia has already given the United States $US500 million ($798 million) to try to reinvigorate the country’s shipbuilding industry, critics contend the AUKUS deal’s fine print means nothing is guaranteed.
Australia is expected to invest a total of $US3 billion in US submarine manufacturing capabilities as part of the deal.
It has been estimated AUKUS could cost Australia about $368 billion by the mid-2050s.
“For Australia, AUKUS is an unprecedented undertaking to be delivered to ambitious timescales,” the House of Commons report noted.
“The UK will need to work closely with Australia at both industry and government level to share expertise and support Australia in meeting its own milestones.”
Trump ‘an unreliable ally’, submission says
US President Donald Trump has expressed his support for the trilateral pact, but the House of Commons inquiry received submissions saying the president’s “America First” approach to foreign policy, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and other geopolitical factors “had undermined the case for AUKUS and its chances of successful delivery”.
The Australian Peace and Security Forum — a not-for-profit that has been calling for a public inquiry into AUKUS to be held in Australia — gave a written submission to the inquiry in which it contended the US under Mr Trump was “an unreliable ally”.
The group also claimed that “geopolitical circumstances have changed for both the UK and Australia since AUKUS was conceived in 2021”.
“Strategic priorities for both countries do not align,” the submission read, adding “the UK should not proceed with AUKUS if it cannot guarantee delivery of its commitments on time and on budget”.
But the inquiry also heard from the UK’s minister for defence readiness, Luke Pollard, who said the changing geopolitical context and increasing threats meant “the importance of making sure that AUKUS delivers is even more prominent than it was when the original initiative was launched all those years ago”.
The House of Commons report highlighted difficulties in staff movement between the AUKUS partner countries due to the security clearances required to work in the defence sector.
A consultancy company involved in AUKUS told the inquiry that moving employees between its UK and Australian businesses was a “time-consuming and administratively burdensome” process.
While AUKUS enjoys significant support from both major political parties in Australia, the deal has also attracted criticism, notably from former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating.
Tan Dhesi, the Labour MP for Slough and chair of the House of Commons Defence Committee, told the ABC the inquiry was designed to review the UK government’s progress with regard to AUKUS.
“Many of us had concerns that things were perhaps not progressing at the pace they should be, but we wanted to gain expert advice as well as evidence,” he said.
Mr Dhesi said as part of the inquiry, representatives of the defence committee visited locations in the UK, US and Australia.
“Our key recommendation is that the UK government needs to do much more and it needs to do it faster in order to reap the full benefits of this once-in-a-generation, long-term strategic partnership with Australia and the US,” he said.
Links to Full Report –
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9068/aukus/publications/ and https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/52831/documents/294641/default/
‘Worst investment ever’: Expert fumes as first $4.2billion taxpayer-funded payment for nuclear subs paid to US
We keep forking out money for submarines I’m definitely not going to live to see, and I don’t know if young people will live to see them ever arrive,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘It is doubling down on something that was a bad idea to start with.
If and when submarines ever did arrive, they would be undoubtedly redundant, overtaken by cheap and cheerful anti-submarine drone technology.
‘If we build this base, it will undoubtedly be a prime nuclear target, because who wouldn’t want to take out a couple of nuclear-armed submarines from America.’
- US announces the first AUKUS contract
- But experts raise the alarm about the deal
By CAITLIN POWELL – NEWS REPORTER and TESS IKONOMOU FOR AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS, 24 April 2026 https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15761031/AUKUS-contract-Mark-Beeson.html
The Trump administration has signed off on the first AUKUS submarine contract, funded by a hefty taxpayer-funded payment from the Albanese government.
The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that nuclear-powered submarine capabilities would be transferred from the United States to Australia.
The contract, worth $276million ($US197million), will be covered by the Labor government’s first down payment of $4.2billion ($US3billion), the ABC reports.
The US Navy has set targets to almost double construction to 2.33 boats per year to build up its fleet, the ABC reports.
But, during a series of congressional hearings this week, data revealed the pace of production has dropped to 1.1 boats per year due to construction delays.
An Australian Submarine Agency spokesperson told the Daily Mail they welcomed the announcement of the new contract.
‘(It) strengthens the United States’ ability to deliver Foreign Military Sales commitments to partners, including Australia,’ they said.
‘This represents further momentum and commitment by AUKUS partners to deliver on the Optimal Pathway.’
Professor Beeson has made no secret of his concerns about the trilateral deal between Australia, the US and the United Kingdom.
‘I think it’s possibly the worst investment Australia’s ever made in anything, but particularly in defence material,’ he said.
‘It is doubling down on something that was a bad idea to start with
The 2021 AUKUS pact is designed to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific and involves Australia acquiring Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US by 2032.
However, the alliance relies on the US building enough defence vessels itself before some are sent to Australia.
International politics expert and AUKUS critic, Professor Mark Beeson, said the contract epitomised Australia’s dependence on American productivity.
‘We keep forking out money for submarines I’m definitely not going to live to see, and I don’t know if young people will live to see them ever arrive,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘It’s because, famously, the Americans can’t build as many as they would like, or consider they need. There’s going to be no spare capacity for these submarines.’
‘The only way to get a more credible-looking outcome for AUKUS is by continuing to supply the Americans and eventually the British with lots of loot to rebuild shipyards and increase the production line for these submarines.
‘If and when submarines ever did arrive, they would be undoubtedly redundant, overtaken by cheap and cheerful anti-submarine drone technology.
‘If we build this base, it will undoubtedly be a prime nuclear target, because who wouldn’t want to take out a couple of nuclear-armed submarines from America.’
The Australian-funded contract has been awarded to US Navy contractor General Dynamics Electric Boat, which will see construction take place on American soil at a Connecticut shipyard.
As such it is between the US Government and industry to support Foreign Military Sales requirements and activities.
While that policy includes AUKUS, Australia is not party to the contract itself and this investment does not relate to Australia’s contribution to the construction of the US Submarine Industrial Base.
The announcement comes just hours after opposition industry spokesman Andrew Hastie said Australia incurred ‘strategic trade-offs’ in doubling down on its alliance with Washington.
‘We forgot the hard lessons of war, and outsourced our security to the United States,’ he said at the Robert Menzies Institute in Melbourne on Thursday.
‘It has cost us sovereign capabilities like a robust defence industry, and our strategic freedom of action in ways that we are now discovering.’
A former special forces officer, Hastie pointed to the fuel crisis triggered by the Middle East conflict and Australia’s de-industrialisation as examples of the nation betting too much on the dominance of the US.
COMMENT. Andrew Hastie conveniently forgetting that it was his own party, theLiberal-National Coalition, that signed up tp AUKUS in the first placde
He warned that, if the security alliance with the US was to endure for another 75 years, Australia needed to urgently invest in its industrial base and defence force.
‘We must grow our industrial might and hard power,’ he said.
Why Australia Defence Spending Priorities Matter
24 April 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Denis Hay , https://theaimn.net/why-australia-defence-spending-priorities-matter/
Australia defence spending priorities reveal trade-offs between military budgets and essential public services.
Introduction
Australia defence spending priorities are increasingly raising concerns about whether public money is being directed toward national wellbeing or long-term military commitments. While governments argue that rising defence budgets are essential for security, many Australians are questioning why essential services face funding pressure while defence spending appears to expand with limited restraint.
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The Problem – Why Australians Feel Stuck
1. Structural cause: Alliance-driven defence policy
Australia growing military commitments through AUKUS are locking in long-term spending decisions that extend decades into the future. These agreements align Australia closely with the strategic interests of allies, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom.
Internal link: Australia’s alliance with the US
2. Consequences: Expanding costs with limited scrutiny
Defence spending is projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars over coming decades, including submarine programs and advanced weapons systems.
AUKUS alone is estimated at around $368 billion over decades.
External evidence from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that global military expenditure continues to rise, reflecting a broader trend toward increased defence investment.
For many Australians, this contrasts sharply with repeated claims that public services must run within tight financial limits.
The Impact – What Australians Are Experiencing
3. Everyday effects on cost of living and services
Australians are dealing with rising housing costs, pressure on healthcare, and job insecurity.
Internal link: Why it feels so hard to get ahead in Australia.
Public systems that directly affect daily life are under strain, often described as requiring reform, efficiency measures, or budget restraint.
4. Who benefits from Australia defence spending priorities
Large defence contractors and multinational corporations’ benefit from long-term public money commitments tied to military procurement.
These arrangements can generate significant profits, while the broader population sees fewer direct benefits in everyday life.
5. NDIS cuts and tightening eligibility criteria
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is increasingly being reshaped through funding constraints and stricter eligibility rules.
Recent changes include:
- Tighter access criteria for new applicants.
- More frequent reassessments for existing participants.
- Reduced or capped funding in some plans.
- Increased administrative requirements and documentation.
For many Australians already on the NDIS, this has created a system where they must continually prove their eligibility, navigating complex processes just to keep essential support.
According to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, demand for disability services continues to grow due to ageing demographics and increased diagnosis rates.
This highlights a clear contrast. Programs that directly support vulnerable Australians are being tightened, while large-scale defence commitments continue with far fewer visible constraints.
This kind of analysis is rarely covered in mainstream media.
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While essential services tighten, spending elsewhere continues to expand.
The Solution – What Must Be Done
6. Monetary sovereignty and national priorities
Australia has full monetary sovereignty, meaning it can fund public priorities without being financially constrained in the way households are.
Modern Monetary Theory explains that governments can allocate public money toward areas that deliver the greatest social benefit, provided real resources are available.
This raises a fundamental question: why are some areas prioritised over others?
7. Practical policy reforms
- Increase transparency on defence contracts and long-term commitments.
- Introduce independent oversight of major defence projects.
- Rebalance spending toward healthcare, housing, and disability support.
- Invest in domestic industries that provide direct public benefit.
- Ensure programs like the NDIS are expanded to meet growing demand.
This article is part of a broader effort to inform and empower Australians.
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If just a small number of readers contribute, this work continues
Final Thoughts
Australia defence spending priorities reveal a deeper issue about how national decisions are made. When large-scale commitments continue in one area while essential services face tightening conditions, it raises legitimate questions about whether current priorities reflect the needs of the Australian people.
Australia defence spending is projected to exceed 2.3% of GDP in coming years.
AUKUS submarine builds hit by contract and construction delays
ABC, By Brad Ryan in Washington DC, Thu 23 Apr
In short:
The US needs to significantly lift the pace of production of nuclear-powered submarines in order to sell several of the boats to Australia under the AUKUS agreement.
But more than two years after the US Congress authorised the Pentagon to award a major submarine-building contract, it remains unsigned.
New research for Congress says the submarines’ construction timelines are also getting longer, and the boats are now being delivered four years after the dates that were originally scheduled.
The US Navy’s submarine-building program — which Australia is relying on for its naval fleet — risks another slowdown due to delays awarding a critical construction contract.
Meanwhile, new research says construction timelines for the nuclear-powered submarines keep blowing out, and they are now being built four years behind schedule.
The contract and construction delays are both affecting the production of Virginia-class submarines, which Australia intends to buy from the US under the AUKUS security pact.
Australia expects to receive at least three of the submarines in the 2030s.
But the sales will only go ahead if the US can build enough of the boats for its own fleet. That requires a significant improvement in the pace of production, the US Navy admits.
“Clearly, there are entities or bureaucrats in the [Trump] administration that are not all in on this goal,” congressman Joe Courtney, who founded the bipartisan AUKUS Working Group, said.
“The Virginia-class … multi-year contracts continue to be delayed, despite all consensus that procurement stability will strengthen investment in facilities and workforce.”
Congress gave the Pentagon authorisation to award the contract in December, 2023 — meaning it has remained unsigned for about 28 months.
The previous comparable contract was awarded within 20 months, Mr Courtney told the ABC.
‘Particularly worrisome’ construction blow-outs
Separate to the contract issue, new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) research adds to existing doubts about the navy’s prospects of picking up the pace of construction.
The US’s military industrial base has been struggling with production that has lagged behind targets for years.
But CBO naval analyst Eric Labs, in written testimony for Congress, said the problem appeared to be worsening.
“What makes the delays … particularly worrisome is that they are long-established shipbuilding programs that previously delivered ships in much shorter timelines,” he wrote.
Military submarines that took 5–6 years to build in the early 2000s were now taking an average of 9–10 years.
“In addition, the delays increased slightly from 2025 to 2026, despite substantial investments to reduce them.”
Some of those investments have more recently come from the Australian government, which is contributing more than $4 billion to help the US fast-track the submarines’ construction.
Mr Labs’s research says building extra submarines for the AUKUS deal will add “another challenge to an already stressed production line”.
Pentagon ‘aware of the urgency’ to award contract…………………………………….
Congress warned of ‘potential for further deterioration’ in build rate
Any additional delays in the shipbuilding program risk exacerbating existing fears that the US will not be able to deliver the submarines as intended under AUKUS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-23/shipbuilding-contract-delays-could-affect-aukus-submarines/106596728
The Apocalypse Salesman: How Richard Marles Sold Australia’s Future to the Permanent War Economy
The Manufactured Threat
Marles identified China as the primary threat to peace. He spoke of the need to project Australian military force “anywhere on the planet” to police global trade.
But China has no history of being an aggressor against Australia. It has never threatened Australia. It has never invaded Australian territory. It has never attacked Australian forces.
The only “threat” is that China might replace the United States as a trading partner by offering quality products at better prices and better trading conditions. This is not a military threat. It is an economic threat – to the profits of the defence contractors, to the hegemony of the United States, to the permanent war economy.
Former prime minister Paul Keating, no stranger to plain speaking, previously accused Marles of a “careless betrayal of the country’s policy agency and independence.”
Keating said:“A moment when an Australian Labor government intellectually ceded Australia to the United States as a platform for the US and, by implication, Australia, for military engagement against the Chinese state in response to a threat China is alleged to be making.”
“China has not threatened Australia militarily, nor indeed has it threatened the United States. And it has no intention of so threatening.”
17 April 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, PhD, https://theaimn.net/the-apocalypse-salesman-how-richard-marles-sold-australias-future-to-the-permanent-war-economy/
The Great Distraction
On April 16, 2026, Defence Minister Richard Marles stood before the National Press Club and announced the biggest military spending spree in Australian history. An extra $14 billion over four years. An additional $53 billion over the next decade. Defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP by 2033.
“Australia faces its most complex and threatening strategic circumstances since the end of World War II,” Marles declared. “International norms that once constrained the use of force and military coercion continue to erode.”
On the same day, the Prime Minister was flying to Brunei to beg for fertiliser and diesel.
The juxtaposition is obscene. While Marles was marketing the apocalypse, Anthony Albanese was scrambling to secure the basic necessities of Australian life – fuel for trucks, fertiliser for crops, the stuff that keeps the country running
The 100 million litres of diesel from Brunei and South Korea is not a solution. It is a distraction. The government is hoping that Australians will see the headline, breathe a sigh of relief, and stop asking the hard questions.
But the questions remain. And they are damning.
The Severity of the Crisis
The situation is far worse than the government has admitted.
As of April 11, 2026, Australia had 31 days’ worth of diesel, 28 days of jet fuel, and 38 days’ of petrol. These figures are dangerously close to the point where the government would be forced to implement nationwide fuel rationing.
In early April, Energy Minister Chris Bowen disclosed that 144 service stations across the country had completely run out of fuel, with a further 283 stations reporting no diesel supplies. The shortages have been most acute in rural and regional areas – precisely where farmers and truck drivers need fuel the most.
The Geelong refinery fire has compounded the problem. Viva Energy’s refinery is one of only two remaining refineries in Australia. The blaze shut down production at the worst possible moment.
As one Taiwanese media outlet starkly put it, Australia is living a “real-life Mad Max” scenario. The comparison is not hyperbolic. The film franchise depicted a world brought to its knees by fuel scarcity. Australia is now staring into that abyss.
The Root Cause: Structural Failure, Not Bad Luck
This crisis is not a bolt from the blue. It is the predictable consequence of decades of policy neglect.
Australia now imports over 90% of its refined fuel needs. In 2000, the country was almost entirely self-sufficient in petroleum products, meeting nearly 98% of its own demand. That figure has collapsed to just 5.6% for crude oil production.
The Just-in-Time model that has governed Australia’s fuel supply for decades is a house of cards. It prioritises efficiency and low costs over resilience and security. The Asian refineries that supply Australia are themselves dependent on crude oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed since late February.
The government has known about this vulnerability for years. In 2010, the NRMA warned that Australia was becoming dangerously dependent on fuel imports from “some of the most politically unstable corners of the globe.” Those warnings were ignored.
The same pattern applies to fertiliser. Australia imports 65% of its urea – the key ingredient in crop fertiliser – from the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz closure has sent prices skyrocketing by 60%. Urea now costs more than $1,550 per tonne, up from $700 before the war.
Farmers are now on “boat watch”, anxiously tracking ships that may not arrive in time for winter planting. “Nothing grows without fertiliser and water,” said canegrower Dean Cayley. He is not exaggerating. Without urea, crop yields can drop by 40%.
The crisis is not a natural disaster. It is a policy choice.
The 100 Million Litre Announcement: Too Little, Too Late
The shipment secured by Prime Minister Albanese from Brunei and South Korea totals approximately 100 million litres.
Opposition sources have been quick to point out that this volume represents little more than a single day’s supply. Australia consumes roughly 90 million litres of fuel daily. The announcement is not a solution. It is a photo opportunity.
The government has also signed “no surprises” energy agreements with Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. These agreements are not legally binding supply guarantees. They are diplomatic assurances that Australia will be given advance notice if any of these nations consider restricting fuel exports.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia was frank about the limitations of the arrangement. “The world looks very different to when you were here last year,” he said. “Global energy markets are under serious stress.” He did not promise that Malaysia would continue supplying Australia indefinitely. He promised that the two nations would talk.
Meanwhile, Australia has no national strategic fuel reserve. The International Energy Agency recommends that member countries hold reserves equivalent to 90 days of net imports. Australia holds approximately 30 days.
The Hidden Story: The Fuel Tax Credit Scheme
The most egregious aspect of this crisis is the one the mainstream media has almost entirely ignored.
Australia’s largest mining companies – BHP, Rio Tinto, Glencore, Fortescue, and Yancoal – continue to receive billions of dollars in fuel tax credits while ordinary Australians struggle to fill their tanks.
The Fuel Tax Credit Scheme is Australia’s largest taxpayer-funded fossil fuel subsidy, costing the budget $11 billion annually. In the 2025 financial year alone, the five largest mining companies were collectively refunded $1.94 billion:
- BHP: $622 million
- Rio Tinto: $423 million
- Glencore: $349 million
- Fortescue: $290 million
- South32: $140 million
Climate Energy Finance has calculated that 18 of the largest diesel consumers in Australia received $3.36 billion in fuel tax credits in the 2025 financial year alone.
The scheme refunds the full customs duty – currently 51.6 cents per litre – paid on imported diesel used off-road in industry. It is a direct transfer of wealth from Australian taxpayers to some of the largest corporations on the planet.
The government is simultaneously pleading with Australians to conserve fuel, subsidising the import of diesel from Asia, and handing billions of dollars to mining companies to continue burning the stuff.
Climate Energy Finance founder Tim Buckley has called for urgent reform, warning that without change, Australia will hand back almost $84 billion in fuel tax credits to major miners by 2030.
The silence from the government is deafening.
The Opportunity Cost: Defence vs. Everything Else
While Marles was marketing the apocalypse, the opportunity cost to Australia became staggering.
The government has announced an extra $14 billion in defence spending over the next four years, with a further $53 billion over the next decade. Total defence spending over the next decade will top out at $887 billion.
Meanwhile, the government has committed a paltry $386 million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for 2026–2030. Gavi has helped vaccinate more than 1.1 billion children globally, saving more than 18.8 million lives. It is one of the most cost‑effective health interventions in history.
The government has provided just $5 million to the Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE).
The message is unmistakable: the government is prepared for war. It is not prepared for the next pandemic.
The Manufactured Threat
Marles identified China as the primary threat to peace. He spoke of the need to project Australian military force “anywhere on the planet” to police global trade.
But China has no history of being an aggressor against Australia. It has never threatened Australia. It has never invaded Australian territory. It has never attacked Australian forces.
The only “threat” is that China might replace the United States as a trading partner by offering quality products at better prices and better trading conditions. This is not a military threat. It is an economic threat – to the profits of the defence contractors, to the hegemony of the United States, to the permanent war economy.
Former prime minister Paul Keating, no stranger to plain speaking, previously accused Marles of a “careless betrayal of the country’s policy agency and independence.” Keating said:
“A moment when an Australian Labor government intellectually ceded Australia to the United States as a platform for the US and, by implication, Australia, for military engagement against the Chinese state in response to a threat China is alleged to be making.”
Keating noted the obvious:
“China has not threatened Australia militarily, nor indeed has it threatened the United States. And it has no intention of so threatening.”
The Revolving Door
The frequency with which political advisers revolve from the Albanese government into the private sector is striking. In March 2026, Defence Minister Richard Marles’s former policy adviser, Kieran Ingrey, left his position and immediately landed at the lobby shop GRACosway.
This is not an isolated incident. It is the revolving door – the mechanism by which public servants and political advisers convert their access into private-sector profit. The same mechanism that has been documented in the United States.
The Australian Financial Review notes that the practice “is starting to give the impression they’re using parliament as a halfway house.” The impression is correct. The halfway house is not a failure. It is a feature.
Ingrey’s new employer, GRACosway, is a lobbying and strategic communications firm. It represents corporate clients. It does not represent the Australian people. The revolving door ensures that the interests of the defence contractors are well represented – not only in the minister’s office, but in the minister’s mind.
The Silence of the Mainstream Media
The mainstream media has been complicit in downplaying the severity of the crisis. The government’s “no surprises” agreements have been reported as diplomatic victories. The 100 million litre purchase has been framed as a success. The underlying structural vulnerabilities have been glossed over.
The fuel tax credit scheme has received almost no coverage. The billions of dollars flowing to mining companies have been ignored. The fact that Australia has no strategic fuel reserve has been mentioned in passing, then forgotten.
The media is not neutral. It is captured.
A Final Word
Richard Marles did not deliver a defence strategy. He delivered a sales pitch.
The target is China. The enemy is abstract. The threat is manufactured.
The real purpose is the wealth transfer. The real beneficiaries are the defence contractors. The real losers are the Australian people, who will pay for this escalation with their taxes, their security, and their future.
The tickets to the Apocalypse Circus keep hitting the marketplace. The government is selling them. The media is promoting them. The opposition is cheering them on.
And the fuel crisis is not a natural disaster. It is a policy choice.
Who’s making money? The arsenal trade after Ukraine and Iran
By Vince Hooper | 15 April 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/whos-making-money-the-arsenal-trade-after-ukraine-and-iran,20929
Defence is no longer a defensive trade, and nowhere is the question of who’s buying, who’s building, and who is being left behind more apparent than in Australia, writes Professor Vince Hooper.
Markets, missiles and the end of the peace dividend — and what it means for Australia
A South Korean missile-maker most Western investors could not have located on a map two years ago has just hit an all-time high. LIG Nex1, a precision-guided munitions and electronic warfare specialist headquartered in Yongin, has nearly quadrupled from its January 2025 base, touching 899,000 won on 6 March 2026 — days after American and Israeli aircraft struck Iranian nuclear and missile facilities.
The Korean defence sector as a whole has returned roughly 137 per cent over the past year. These are not the numbers of a sleepy industrial cyclical. They are the numbers of an asset class being repriced in real time.
Defence is no longer a defensive trade. It is the trade. And nowhere is the question of who is buying, who is building, and who is being left in the queue more pointed than in Australia.
Canberra in the queue
For Australia, the arsenal trade is not an abstract market story. It is a mirror.
AUKUS is now a procurement queue rather than a strategy and the cost of waiting for Virginia-class submarines while the Indo-Pacific darkens is becoming uncomfortable to discuss in polite company.
Canberra is, in effect, paying premium prices for late delivery, while Korean and Japanese yards offer shorter timelines at lower cost.
Hanwha’s confirmed 19.9 per cent strategic stake in Austal, cleared by both the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and Canberra’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) by late 2025, the Henderson shipyards build-up (now known as the Australian Marine Complex), the AS9 Huntsman self-propelled howitzer program being built by Hanwha at Avalon, near Geelong are not coincidences. They are the early signs of an Australian defence industrial base quietly rotating away from Anglosphere dependence and towards Asian arsenals that can actually deliver.
The strain is visible in real time. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported last week, Canberra’s first crisis call during the Middle East escalation went to Beijing rather than Washington — a reflex inversion that would have been unthinkable a decade ago and that tells you more about the perceived reliability of the American guarantee than any AUKUS communiqué.
The ASX has noticed even if the cabinet has not: DroneShield, Electro Optic Systems, Codan and Austal have all attracted the kind of investor attention that only arrives when a market decides a sector’s tail risks have permanently thickened.
From cost centre to industrial darling
The Ukraine War did the structural work. It converted defence from a politically awkward line item into the most fashionable corner of industrial policy and it taught Western treasuries an uncomfortable lesson about how thin their magazines actually were. Three years of artillery duels in the Donbas drained stockpiles NATO had quietly assumed would last a generation.
The Middle East conflict is the second shock. Patriot interceptors, Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) reloads, Iron Dome Tamirs, SM-3s, 155mm shells, loitering munitions — each salvo over the Gulf is, in accounting terms, a revenue recognition event somewhere in Arizona, Alabama, Haifa or Daejeon. Governments that spent the 2010s running down inventories on the assumption of a benign world are now writing cheques to rebuild them, and they are writing those cheques into the same handful of balance sheets.
Who, specifically, is making money
Four tiers are visible.
First, the American primes — Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, L3Harris. They capture the replenishment contracts, the integration work, and the multi-year framework agreements that Congress now waves through with rare bipartisan enthusiasm. Their backlogs are at record highs and, after two decades of monopsony complaints, their pricing power has quietly inverted.
Second, the European awakening — Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Saab AB, Thales. Germany’s Zeitenwende turned out to be real, and Rheinmetall in particular has become the continent’s de facto shell foundry, trading less like an industrial stock and more like a leveraged proxy on NATO’s Article 5 itself.
Third, and most interesting from where Australia sits, the Asian arsenals — Hanwha Aerospace, Korea Aerospace Industries, Hanwha Systems and the LIG Nex1 of the opening paragraph, alongside Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki in Japan. South Korea has done what Europe spent 30 years failing to do: build a deep, exportable, price-competitive defence industrial base with delivery times measured in months rather than decades.
Warsaw noticed first. Riyadh, Canberra and Cairo are noticing now. Israel’s own Elbit, Rafael and IAI sit alongside them as the technological pace-setters, particularly in air defence and electronic warfare, where the Iran exchange has been a brutal but effective live-fire showcase.
Fourth, the invisible compounders — the propellant chemists, the rare-earth magnet refiners, the speciality steel mills, the gallium nitride foundries, the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) cleared software shops, the maritime insurers writing war-risk cover on Hormuz transits at multiples of last year’s premium. This is where the quiet fortunes are being made. Lynas Rare Earths, sitting on one of the few non-Chinese heavy rare earth supply chains in existence, belongs in this tier, whether the market has fully priced it in or not.
The Gulf parallel
For the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the calculation is different and more cynical than Australia’s, but the underlying logic is the same. Every Gulf capital is simultaneously a customer, a forward operating base, and a potential target. Sovereign wealth is rotating accordingly — not away from defence, but into it. Saudi Arabia, in particular, is building domestic primes such as the Synchronised Accessible Media Exchange (SAMI) — wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund and openly targeting a place in the global top 25 defence companies by 2030.
The export of security capacity has become a new instrument of influence and the capital flows track the doctrine more faithfully than any white paper. Australia, with its Henderson precinct ambitions and its Hanwha partnership, is on a milder version of the same curve.
The uncomfortable coda
None of this is a celebration. A rising LIG Nex1 share price is, in the end, a market-implied judgement that more young people in more places will be killed by better-engineered weapons. The honest analyst names that trade-off rather than hiding behind the chart.
But the honest analyst also tells the truth about incentives. The Ukraine War did not enrich defence contractors by accident and the Iran strikes will not either. Governments that spent a generation treating deterrence as a sunk cost are now paying the bill they should have been paying all along and the firms holding the order books are, predictably, getting rich.
CNN reported over the weekend that U.S. intelligence believes China is preparing to deliver shoulder-fired air defence missiles (MANPADS) to Iran during the current ceasefire — a claim Beijing has formally denied. If the reporting holds, that single fact reframes the arsenal trade as an explicit great-power contest rather than a Western replenishment cycle — and it makes every defence ministry from Canberra to Riyadh recalculate how long it can afford to wait in the AUKUS queue.
For Australia, the question is sharper than for most. Canberra can keep waiting for Virginia-class boats and hoping the phone in Washington still gets answered, or it can do what Warsaw and Riyadh have already done — back the arsenals that can actually deliver, and accept that strategic autonomy in 2026 looks less like an alliance white paper and more like a procurement contract with Daejeon, Tokyo, Henderson or Geelong.
The post-Cold War peace dividend has been spent. What replaces it is already listed, already trading and already on the front page. The only open question is whether Australia is reading the same page as the rest of the market.
Professor Vince Hooper is a proud Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.
1 This month.
4 June Webinar – where is our public inquiry into AUKUS?
Thu, Jun 04, 2026 11am AEST Zoom. Register at https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/in_the_dark_on_aukus_where_is_our_public_inquiry
7 June – WEBINAR- Get Inspired by Protests Against Military Bases!
Jun 7, 2026 12:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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