Senate Adjournment
30 June 2026
A constituent recently wrote to me with a very simple and sharp suggestion: perhaps there is some merit in better informing the electorate about why Australia has a submarine force, why Australians excel at being submariners and why nuclear power. And I thought that was a good question and an excellent idea, so tonight I want to draw on the work of one of Australia’s most distinguished submariners, Commodore Bob Trotter, and I want to unpack some of the questions that were put to me by this constituent.
Most Australians would be surprised to learn that we have operated submarines since 1914. HMAS AE1 and AE2 completed the longest ocean voyage ever made by a submarine, sailing from Barrow, in the United Kingdom, all the way to Sydney. AE2 became the first submarine to penetrate the Dardanelles, entering the Sea of Marmara, in Türkiye, and opening the way for Allied submarines to attack Turkish supply lines from the rear. Very few Australians know these stories. Even fewer know that Fremantle was once the second-largest submarine base in the world and that submarines operating from there played a decisive role in defeating Japan, not through battle but by cutting off its fuel supply. So it is important to understand that submariners and submarines have been a very crucial and critical part of our military’s DNA for over a century.
Australians have proven themselves as being outstanding at it. Admiral Colvin, who served as chief of naval staff, once said that Australians are ‘never mere copyists’; we absorb knowledge and tradition and blend it with something strictly our own, and the result is unmistakeable. Our submariners have proved him right time and time again. Our Collins class submarines regularly exceed global performance standards in conditions more demanding than those faced by any other conventionally powered submarine force. In exercises, our boats have repeatedly outperformed far larger and better resourced allied vessels. Our submariners carry the motto of HMAS Platypus, ‘Nothing Too Difficult’.
This brings me to the technical question that I am most often asked about: why nuclear powered, and what does that actually mean? Nuclear powered submarines are not nuclear armed. That is something that we need to be very clear and careful about in this conversation. The reactor propels the vessel; there are no nuclear weapons. What the reactor provides is freedom—freedom from the single greatest constraint facing every commander of a conventional submarine in the world. Every conventional submarine runs on a battery, and every commander of such a boat watches that battery percentage constantly. To recharge, the submarine must rise to periscope depth and run its diesel generators, a process called snorting, which is a very noisy, vulnerable moment. Technological advances mean that the moment a submarine rises to snort, it can be detected via satellite. In the age of missiles and network systems, this is a truly unacceptable risk for our sailors and submariners.
A nuclear submarine has none of these constraints. It can remain submerged and undetected for the entire duration of deployment. This dramatically improves the chances of a mission’s success, but, above all else, it avoids placing the men and women of the Royal Australian Navy in a danger that is unnecessary now that nuclear propulsion is available to us. For a nation whose area of maritime interests stretches thousands of kilometres across two oceans, endurance and freedom of navigation are not luxuries; they are the difference between a submarine force that can truly protect Australia and one that is fundamentally limited in where it can reach and how long it can stay.
