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June 3, 2026
A senior Albanese Government minister has confirmed the USrecently changed its mind over which Virginia-class submarines should betransferred to Australia under AUKUS but insists the new approach is what thiscountry always wanted.
New details are emerging about which second-hand boats Australia will be buyingfrom the US as the Government scrambles to clean up what appeared to be asurprise recent announcement on a changed approach to the AUKUS "optimalpathway".
Defence Minister Richard Marles and his American counterpart Pete Hegsethannounced in Singapore at the weekend that Australia will now be acquiringthree "in service" Virginia-class submarines starting in 2032, ratherthan two second-hand and one brand-new boat.
Australia's new Defence secretary Meghan Quinn on Tuesday night claimed buyingonly second-hand submarines was always the preference for AUKUS, before laterclarifying to a Senate committee that the project could have "twoconstrained optimal pathways".
Discussions around which type of submarines Australia would buy ramped up inthe weeks before Mr Marles and Mr Hegseth met on the sidelines of theShangri-la Dialogue, The West understands, but details about the change weren'tforeshadowed.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said on Wednesday that Washington hadchanged its mind about what mixture of submarines they wanted in their fleetand re-examined the arrangement.
"This is better for us, and that's why we asked for it originally,"he told The Nightly.
"This is the US administration making another active decision to confirmAUKUS by saying yes, we think it's better that you get three in-service subs,it'll be cheaper to run, cheaper to maintain and simpler."
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the change would save Australia money, but how muchwill remain secret until the next Budget update, not expected until December.
"This will make the investment a bit cheaper, but we don't update thatfrom week to week.
"We do that from Budget to Budget and you can expect us to do that at thenext opportunity," he said.
Notes taken by this masthead on a briefing about the optimal
CONTINUED PAGE 9 FROM PAGE 8 pathway when the detailed AUKUS deal was announcedin San Diego in March 2023 show, at that time, it was "still to beresolved whether (the) Virginias are second-hand or new".
Separate contemporaneous notes from the same briefing recorded that there wouldbe "three, possibly second-hand, Virginias sold to Australia".
By November 2023, senior US Navy officer Vice-Admiral Bill Houston was sayingthe arrangement would be to sell two in-service and one brand-new submarines toAustralia.
Mr Conroy said Australia had consistently been pushing to get three boats thathad been through their first significant maintenance.
"This is not like getting a new Tesla. Getting a brand-new Virginia islike getting the first Tesla ever made it's going to have problems," hesaid.
"Every new platform has running issues that you have to resolve, and youcan spend years doing that. So by getting all three subs six or seven years in,after their first major maintenance period, the US Navy's taking the risk withthem, they've ironed out all the kinks, and we're getting them at their peak operatingefficiency."
Shadow defence minister James Paterson said there were legitimate arguments tomake that running three of the same type of Virginia-class submarines wassimpler, but that the Government hadn't given a full explanation of why thechange was necessary.
"The Government won't explain how much cheaper it will be. Officials haveno answers at all about the specifics, despite the fact that the DefenceMinister has claimed it would significantly cheaper," he said afterquizzing department officials during Senate estimates.
"The optimal pathway was actually chosen by this Government, by theAlbanese Government in 2023. This is their plan, which they are nowchanging."
Asked whether the announcement made by his colleague Richard Marles over theweekend was not handled well, Mr Conroy told The Nightly: "I think it washandled well, I'm just providing more detail, which is my job."
The Virginia-class submarines have an estimated lifetime of 33 years, andAustralia has been assured that it will receive ones that have only just beenthrough their first maintenance, with 25-27 years remaining.
That means the first one, due to be acquired in 2032, will be a submarinerolling off the production line this year. The two defence establishments arenow in the process of identifying exactly which boats Australia will receive.
Ms Quinn, pictured, told Senate estimates late on Tuesday night that thedecision about whether Australia would buy new or old boats was "a jointdiscussion with the United States".
Senator Paterson pressed her on whether the United States had originally"imposed a new submarine on us and said: you must take a new submarineeven if you want three in-service".
"The joint decision at that time was that there would be two in-service andone new, there were discussions at that time around the different options andat that time the joint discussion was to have two in-service and one new,"she replied.
The exchange came just hours after outspoken Labor MP Ed Husic challenged thePrime Minister to allow caucus members to have a fresh vote on AUKUS followingthe changes unveiled over the weekend.
Mr Marles, who was returning from his talks with Mr Hegseth and missed thecaucus meeting, said that "obviously Ed is very much entitled to his opinion"but the government was "unambiguously supportive" of AUKUS.
"There is a change in terms of the third of the Virginia classes goingfrom being what had been intended to be a new submarine to being an in-servicesubmarine. We're talking about a single submarine," he told a Defenceindustry conference after arriving back in Canberra.
"I mean, the first two were always going to be in service. Nothing'schanged about that. And the bulk of AUKUS actually is the building of our ownsubmarines in Adelaide and nothing is changing there.
"So, in the context of the bigger picture here, this is not a huge part ofit.
"You wouldn't describe it as fundamental."
This is not like getting a new Tesla. Getting a brand-new Virginia is likegetting the first Tesla ever made it's going to have problems. Pat Conroy