South Australia to get bulk of AUKUS work but history shows Newcastle built Collins class hull modules for assembly in Adelaide

Interviewed in London, Mr Conroy discussed his visit to a UK naval shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness as well as Australia's support for Ukraine.

"AUKUS is all about industrial collaboration," Mr Conroy said.

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"The goal is at the end of AUKUS pillar one (submarine supply) is that we've come from three shipyards - in the United Kingdom, Australia and the [US] capable of building nuclear submarines - to four. Two in the United States, one in the UK, one in Australia."

As the Newcastle Herald reported last year, Newcastle is on a short-list of three ports to house an east coast nuclear submarine base, along with Brisbane and Port Kembla. Although nothing has been said officially, defence industry sources have told the Herald they believe that Newcastle may well be the front-runner of the three.

Logically, however, given the longstanding presence of the Australian Submarine Corp (ASC) shipyard at Adelaide, most of the work in any construction program would likely be in South Australia, although some hull modules for both the existing Collins class subs and the Anzac frigates were made in Newcastle and then taken to their respective assembly points in Adelaide and Melbourne.

Mr Conroy said the commitment to build nuclear submarines would increase the industrial base of the three partner nations.

"If in the end, we take workers from the US or the UK in any significant portion, that doesn't result in growing the industrial base of the three countries," Mr Conroy said. "So what we are trying to do is grow a home grown base. That will be, I think, complemented by skilled migrants, as you would expect. But the lessons I took out of the visit to Barrow is the need to start that pipeline right now."

Mr Conroy said ASC was doing Collins class life-extension work, and 200 employees had been kept on after cancelling the French Attack class submarine.

"As (Defence Minister) Richard Marles has said, we need 2000 skilled workers in the next five years," Mr Conroy said. "But we'll see tens of thousands of workers working in Adelaide on this nation-building project.

"And there's many lessons out of Barrow, as I said. They sank below 2,000 workers, and now they're up to 11,5000 workers (including) 350 apprentices each year."

The Albanese government's Defence Strategic Review is scheduled to report by the end of March, when more is expected about the government's AUKUS plans.

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