NAVAL BOSS WARY OF WATER DAMAGE
AUSTRALIA is at risk of being “strangled” by foreign nations at sea unless it has nuclear-powered submarines, Chief of Navy Mark Hammond has warned.
Vice Admiral Hammond issued the dire warning about Australia’s vulnerability at the Submarine Institute meeting in Canberra on Tuesday.
“This nation derives its economic wellbeing and security from the sea – it could not be simpler,” he said. “As an island trading nation, our financial system is completely reliant upon seabed cables (providing) connectivity with the outside world.”
He said adversaries would not need to invade Australia to “do us harm”.
“You can strangle this economy from the sea, and not necessarily off the coast of Australia,” he said.
“You can strangle it from thousands of miles away.”
Vice Admiral Hammond said acquiring nuclearpowered submarines, which can stay submerged for much longer than conventional boats, under the AUKUS security pact with Britain and the US would help protect supply lines and cables.
“The reality is, the undersea domain remains one of the most complex and challenging scientific environments on the planet and I have complete confidence that the strategic relevance of (nuclear) submarines and their relative advantage against competing technologies will be sustained for decades,” he said.
Also speaking at the event was Commodore Tom Phillips, the navy’s director general of submarines, who flagged a pay boost to attract and retain submariners to crew the Collins-class fleet and the future nuclearpowered boats.
“There is a strong focus to maintain workforce growth (for) the Collins-class through the Life-of-type Extension (maintenance program) … and need to grow the nuclear-powered submarine workforce required,” Commodore Phillips said.
“Part of this will be our work contemporising remuneration of submariners going forward.”
Defence Minister Richard Marles hinted at a greater focus of investment on Western Australia as a submarine base under the AUKUS pact.
“A lot of focus has been put on South Australia, that’s appropriate, that is where we will develop the capability to build submarines,” Mr Marles said. “WA is going to matter as well, it’s really going to matter.
“WA is obviously the home to our submarine fleet now, will continue to be that going forward and has a very particular role to play in the next few years.”