Remove red tape stalling AUKUS

Tuesday 22 September 2026

Paul Starick

The Adelaide Advertiser

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Hi-tech military equipment sharing under the AUKUS pact – centred on Adelaide’s nuclear-powered submarine project – must be accelerated by axing red tape and boosting private investment, says Coalition defence spokesman James Paterson. 

In a speech to an Adelaide conference today, Senator Paterson will say AUKUS Pillar 2 can be “a revolutionary step” in areas including electronic warfare, advanced cyber and hypersonic capabilities. 

But he warns progress must be urgently demonstrated to overcome “badfaith critics” who seek to undermine the trinational security pact between Australia, the UK and the US. 

In an address to the Submarine Institute of Australia, Senator Paterson will say South Australia has “long been at the frontier of Australia’s defence and manufacturing sectors”. 

“And this state will continue its proud history leading Australia’s defence industry in hosting the single most important and complex project in our history – the construction of Australia’s SSN AUKUS submarine at the Osborne naval shipyard, right here in Adelaide,” he says. 

But Senator Paterson says political support and social licence for AUKUS requires progress in Pillar 2 while “ the necessarily slow and complex nuclear submarine enterprise evolves”. 

“Five years after AUKUS was announced, its strategic necessity is clearer than ever – but ambition must now be matched by delivery,” he says. 

“That means removing the regulatory barriers that slow collaboration, and mobilising private capital to develop and field advanced capabilities at speed and scale."

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