Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has said Australia will never receive the nuclear-powered submarines promised under its $368 billion Aukus agreement with the United States, and that officials in Canberra and Washington already know it.

Carr, who served as foreign affairs minister in the Labor governments of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, described the pact as a fiction that both governments were maintaining in public while privately preparing for something else. In an interview on Guardian Australia's Australian Politics podcast, published on 13 November, he said the two countries were, in his words, "living a lie" about the deal's eventual outcome.

His expectation is that American-operated submarines will instead be based in Australia, rather than handed over to the Australian navy. Carr argued that a future US president was likely to determine that China's military strength would make it too difficult for three or more Virginia-class nuclear submarines to be transferred to Australia.

What Carr said

Carr, a long-standing critic of the deal, said the agreement had been reduced to a diplomatic joke and that it no longer fooled anyone inside the defence establishments of either country. He said it was now widely accepted in both capitals that the submarines would not arrive, and that the real question was what Australia would get instead.

The remarks come days after the US midterm elections and ahead of a meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Donald Trump, at which the future of the submarine pact is expected to feature. Carr also served as premier of New South Wales before entering federal politics, and he has been one of the most prominent Australian voices questioning the Aukus project since it was announced.

The timetable and the money already paid

Under the timetable set out when the deal was struck in 2021 by then prime minister Scott Morrison, then US president Joe Biden and then British prime minister Boris Johnson, the first Virginia-class submarine from the United States was due to reach Australia in 2032, with another arriving every four years after that. A purpose-built model, known as SSN Aukus, was not expected to come online until 2042, more than two decades after the agreement was signed.

Australia has already paid more than $3 billion to support submarine manufacturing in the United States, part of about $4.6 billion in payments promised over the life of the deal, alongside spending on infrastructure, workforce and construction. Australia is set to buy three second-hand Virginia-class submarines from the US before the new SSN-Aukus boats enter service from the 2040s.

Under the terms of the pact, a future US president must certify that the sale of the boats will not negatively affect the American navy, a condition that has become central to doubts about whether the transfer will ever happen.

Doubts are not new

Carr is not the first senior Australian figure to question whether the submarines will arrive. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told an independent public inquiry into the agreement in August that it was unlikely the Virginia-class submarines would be delivered while the US navy continued to fall behind on production. Turnbull, like Carr, warned that Australia faced a real risk of not receiving its promised boats.

Defence analysts have also pointed to severe bottlenecks at American shipyards. The US Navy's own senior officers have told Congress that shipbuilding capacity would need to improve dramatically before the submarines promised to Australia could be delivered on schedule.

Government stands by the deal

The Australian government maintains that the Aukus agreement is proceeding as intended. Ministers have repeatedly insisted the programme remains on track and that the submarines will be delivered, while pointing to the billions already invested in workforce, infrastructure and industrial capacity in both countries.

Carr's intervention nevertheless sharpens a debate that has followed Aukus since its announcement: whether Australia's largest defence procurement project will deliver the capability it promises, or whether Canberra will end up with American boats operating from Australian bases instead of a sovereign submarine fleet of its own. Source: The Guardian, via World Right Now | Background: AAP on Malcolm Turnbull's warning