Here is Richard Marle's full speech and discussion transcript from the Submarine Institute of Australia conference.
It's well worth a read IMO and brings further insight and context to his perspective beyond the quotes which have circulated in the media.
I think your DEFMIN gets it about SSNs and not just at the pointy end.
"When we – when this meeting happened, the Strategic Conference, happened last time, two years ago it was a very different world. At that point in time, the successor to Collins was 12 Attack-class submarines, diesel-electric, that we were building with the French and at conferences like this when people like you were asking ministers like me about whether we would consider walking down a nuclear path, you would get very short dead bat answers to those questions which encouraged everyone to move on. And now here we are two years later, and the successor to Collins is a nuclear capability that we are working on with both the United States and the United Kingdom, with an announcement due on the optimal pathway in the first half of next year. ...
"When I first became shadow minister for defence, back in 2016, it was clear to me that submarines mattered. But if I'm being really honest, I didn't quite understand why they mattered. And now, I hope I do. But I really want to thank everyone in this room and this organisation for promoting discussion and debate around the single most important capability that we have within the Australian Defence Force which builds Australia's strategic space, and that's particularly the case in a world where our strategic circumstances are much more complex and much more precarious. So getting the debate right, and making the right decisions has been, is more important now, and the stakes are higher now than they have probably been at any point since the end of the Second World War. ...
"Perhaps the starting point is to answer it in a strategic context, which is that the opportunity fundamentally, in walking down the pathway of developing a nuclear powered submarine capability, is to have the capability to build Australia's strategic space in a much wider range of circumstances that are potentially there facing us in the future, than that what I really think (inaudible) since the end of the Second World War. And I put that in, it's kind of significant terms, meaning building strategic space and making sure that we have capability - defence capability in Australia, actually, I think goes to our ability to maintain the way of life that we’ve enjoyed into the middle of this century, in I think could be a much more precarious and potentially much more dangerous world. And so, the nuclear powered submarines, I think, are absolutely fundamental. Probably the most fundamental piece in that puzzle. And I think it is important to start by making that observation because as we walk down this path, often we think about, you know, the kind of defence industry dividend and the technological dividend for the economy. All really important, but we need to analyse this from the point of view of strategic purpose first. That’s the dog, and the rest is the tail. It’s really important that we have a clarity of thought going forward here, where tails don’t wag dogs. ...
"There is though a significant tail, and that is that in developing the ability to make a nuclear powered submarine in Australia, not the reactor but the rest of it, is a huge undertaking, we will do and from that is going to have an enormous benefit obviously in terms of jobs, but in terms of what that can do around the place of science and technology within our economy. And I think if we kind of go off strategic policy for a moment, one of the great challenges for us as a country, as important as primary industry is – and it’s really important - we need to develop the human component of our economy much more. We need to climb the technological ladder, we really need to change and enhance our cultural relationship with science and start infusing science and technology throughout our economy. Making our economy more complex. This is a really important endeavour, which will help that. So, I think on a whole range of levels there are great opportunities that come from walking down this path. ..."
He appears to understand that the tail is just as important as the pointy end and that without the full infrastructure and logistics the pointy end is going to fail. He also recognises that Australia is lacking in certain technologies, scientific and technological skills, and that it will have to start now to ensure that the required skills etc., will be available when required, but also will be ongoing. Plenty of STEM in primary, secondary, and tertiary education as well as industry and throughout the wider economy.
On timelines:
"Last week I received the first interim advice from Sir Angus Houston and Stephen Smith. We are in a position to hand out the Defence Strategic Review in the first quarter of next year. That's the same time as what we're trying to do with the assessment of where we go with submarines, in respect of that. ..."
On the nuclear pathway.
"The final point I’ll make is, we are walking down the nuclear pathway (inaudible) pretty easily, but the scale of what that means in terms of the national endeavour, is huge. It's meaning, for example, that a building, I guess in Adelaide that might have housed some components of the Attack-class submarine would have been rated to withstand a one-in-500 year seismic event in the context of a nuclear mindset, we need to be rating that building to a one-in-10 thousand year seismic event. Everything needs to be harder. Everything needs to be more robust. This is an example of the degree to which we need to go to make sure that we are able to be good nuclear stewards, from cradle to grave. And cradle this sense means the receiving of the reactor, not the building of it, but right through the process we need to be thinking about how we regulate and how we handle the nuclear material. We need to be doing that from the perspective of both the United States and the United Kingdom because they are not going to walk down this path unless they have a complete sense of confidence about our ability to be good nuclear stewards. We won't be able to do it from the perspective of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who will not give us the tick unless they have a sense of confidence that we will good nuclear stewards, and their tick will be the social licence for us walking down this path. So there is just a power work to be done in respect of all of that and again, I think people in this room have an enormous contribution to make there. ...
Then one final piece amongst all of this is that, I mentioned earlier that to get to where we need to, in terms of nuclear powered submarine capability, there is a human dimension to this. We need to grow our submariners and providing opportunities for them on essentially US and UK boats is going to be really important. So we've already announced something in relation to that in respect of the UK, we hope to find opportunities in the US as well. But that, I mean that happens well before we’ve got our own nuclear submarine in the water, but we will be kind of walking down a path very soon of actually growing Australian submariners who are nuclear submarine capable. ..."
On the Collins Class:
"In terms of Collins, yeah, I guess going back to the previous question you asked, whichever way you cut it, Collins is going to be doing the bulk of their submarine task for many years to come. Life of Type Extension of Collins, which is really now the replacement all six Collins, are going to be really important. And so, a lot of what we're going to be about in the immediate term, in terms of the way in which we are doing our submarine capability, is through Collins. So I can’t kind of emphasise enough how important Collins is, and the emphasis we need to place upon that, and particularly the Life of Type Extensions. ..."
Well we kinda figured that was going to happen because that was the only logical and feasible solution, despite what some may think. It comes down to both cost and practicality.
On subs being built in Australia:
"Before we say nuclear powered submarines, submarines are hugely complex machines, so the process that we have gone through as a country in terms of - as a defence industrial base, and working out what capabilities we have to build the Attack-class, as we were going to, is not wasted effort. That actually, that is still highly relevant to understand what capabilities we've got and what we can bring to bear in this. So I think before we talk about nuclear power, we are planning to build submarines in Australia still, and we're planning to walk down that path pretty soon, and pretty quickly. And so all the work that we had previously done in relation to getting people prepared to participate in Attack applies here. I think there is - there are all the issues that I described in relation to nuclear stewardship, which we need to be thinking through, and it's not - it's kind of, I almost feel, above my paygrade, but it is just the concept that everything is more far more robust. And so we need to be thinking about that."
That basically covers it and I think gives a basic understanding where things need to happen and what most likely will happen. On the face of it, you may just have yourselves a good Defence Minister.
