Australian Submarine Agency Budget Rises to $512 Million

The Australian Submarine Agency’s resourcing for next financial year will increase from $385 million to $512 million, according to this year’s budget papers. Staffing at the agency is set to rise from about 883 positions to 1,209 next year. The changes reflect growing demands on the agency responsible for delivering Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine program under the AUKUS deal.

13 billion for the four years to 2028-29. 7 billion over the same period. The Australian Submarine Agency budget has increased by $431 million over four years.

In the previous budget, the Australian Submarine Agency’s total annual budget peaked at $529 million in 2026-27. It will now peak at $641 million in 2028-29.

9 million funding is to assist in developing advice to inform Australia’s future radioactive waste management and disposal pathways. Australia has not identified a permanent storage site for the nuclear waste generated by its nuclear-powered submarine fleet. Successive federal governments have spent three decades unsuccessfully trying to establish a nuclear waste site.

In 2023, Defence Minister Richard Marles committed to publicly outlining a process for identifying a nuclear waste site within 12 months. No plan or site for nuclear waste storage has yet been identified as of the 2026-27 budget. Richard Marles has said a nuclear waste site will be identified on defence land, current or future.

AUKUS is the trilateral deal signed by the Morrison government with the United States and United Kingdom. Pillar One of AUKUS promises to deliver Australia its own fleet of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS is estimated to cost Australia $368 billion into the 2050s.

6 billion to be given to each of the UK and US to boost their submarine-building rates. 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. 2 boats a year, according to the Congressional Research Office.

The US fleet currently has only three-quarters of the submarines it needs, according to the Congressional Research Office. 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.

Australia’s first domestically built AUKUS submarine is scheduled to be in the water in the early 2040s. The UK must build one further Astute class attack submarine and four Dreadnought class nuclear ballistic submarines before building the first AUKUS submarine. The UK submarine-building yard is at Barrow-in-Furness.

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 was visiting Australia and was hurriedly recalled to the northern hemisphere at the outbreak of the current US-Israel war with Iran.