UK and Australia set to elevate defence relationship
UK foreign secretary David Cameron and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps are expected to make a major announcement about the joint AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project, and sign a significant "status of forces" agreement.
Transcript
00:00 Now, there's already a lot of cooperation between the UK and Australia on military matters,
00:07 but what this agreement will do, well, it'll just make it easier, for example, for British
00:11 military personnel to come to Australia.
00:13 It puts a framework in place for that and for Australian forces going to the UK if necessary,
00:19 as well as making it easier for the two militaries to do things like share fuel supplies and
00:24 the like down the track.
00:26 So this is all about making it easier for both sides to boost what's called intraoperability.
00:34 And there's also a bit of symbolism at play, the UK signalling that it wants to be a major
00:38 player in the Indo-Pacific and that it sees Australia as a major partner in that endeavour.
00:43 What are we likely to see around Australia's plans for a nuclear submarine?
00:47 Well, of course, the focus is typically on the United States.
00:52 Understandably, when it comes to the AUKUS pact and Australia's plan to develop a nuclear-powered
00:57 submarine of its own.
00:59 But of course, the UK is also a member of AUKUS and is an indispensable part of this
01:04 attempt to try and get Australia a nuclear-powered submarine capability.
01:10 Now we're expecting over coming days, all four ministers, that is Richard Miles and
01:14 Penny Wong and their British counterparts to go to Adelaide, as well as their talks
01:19 today in Canberra.
01:20 And we're expecting a major announcement in the AUKUS space.
01:23 The broad expectation is that BAE, the British company, which has already got a substantial
01:29 presence in Adelaide, it's building frigates there, that it will be announced as a major
01:35 player in the effort to build those second generation AUKUS submarines in Adelaide.
01:42 The theory or the hope is that they'll be in the water from the 2040s.
01:46 So that's a pretty substantive moment or a pretty important moment in AUKUS.
01:50 But of course, there are still huge formidable and formidable technical, political and other
01:57 hurdles that all three countries face in this enormously ambitious endeavour to try and
02:02 develop nuclear-powered submarines.
02:04 So it is a substantial announcement taking Australia further down that track.
02:08 But there is an awful long way still to travel.
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