The head of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) has appealed to young people across the country to join Australia’s nuclear submarine-building workforce.
Speaking at Monday’s Defending Australia(Opens in a new tab/window) event, ASA Director-General Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, issued a rallying call to high-schoolers and recent graduates to pursue careers that will contribute to Australia’s national security.
Addressing the audience at the Great Hall in Parliament House, which included taking questions from students at technical colleges and universities, Vice Admiral Mead encouraged Australia’s next generation of workers to contribute to the AUKUS effort.
‘We’re looking for people to embark upon a career that lends itself to the nuclear-powered submarine (NPS) program, whether that be in logistics, law, maintenance, build, architecture - the list and the spectrum is open ended and there are 20,000 job opportunities, not just in South Australia or in WA, but nationally, throughout Australia,’ said Vice Admiral Mead.
‘We need to encourage people that are in different fields of employment, that there are opportunities for them to diversify and move into naval construction and the NPS program.
‘It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, what your starting point is…if you have a sense of purpose and if you're focused and dedicated, you will achieve what you are setting out for.’
Vice Admiral Mead was joined on the panel by the Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas; Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond; Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) CEO, Stuart Wiley; BAE Systems Australia CEO Craig Lockhart.
Australia will commence building its SSN-AUKUS submarines at Osborne Naval Shipyard by the end of the decade. The AUKUS investment will also see a new submarine construction yard and a skills and training academy built, with the broader program expected to create up to 5,500 jobs in South Australia.
In an earlier interview with The Advertiser, Vice Admiral Mead said the acquisition and sustainment of nuclear-powered submarines is an immense engineering and workforce challenge that will take a generational effort to achieve.
‘It is the hardest thing that the government's done, it is probably the most complex engineering task in the world right now,’ said Vice Admiral Mead.
‘There is a 15-year-old somewhere in Australia right now, hopefully they are doing their mathematics and physics homework; we want them to be the first commanding officer of SSN-AUKUS.
‘We want their friends to be working the maintenance yards in Western Australia where they will sustain the submarines. We want their classmates to become nuclear physicists. We want their cousins to be welders and programmers.
‘This is a national endeavour. It won’t be solely done in South Australia…we welcome the other states’ workforce and their capacity to be able to feed into the heart of the SSN-AUKUS build program. We need to draw upon every aspect of Australian society and industry for the program.
‘If you’re up for a challenge and if you want to participate in the hardest thing that Australia has ever undertaken, if you want a sense of purpose, if you want to test out your mettle on doing something which is more complicated than the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station, if you want to make history, come down to South Australia and we’ll give you a job for life.’
The expanding workforce will support a range of professionals, including nuclear, marine, mechanical and electrical engineers; trades such as welders, electricians, pipefitters, and metal fabricators; quality assurance inspectors, project managers, and systems integrators; and support roles in logistics, procurement, and administration.
Learn more about career opportunities relating to AUKUS via the ASA website. Additional career information can be found via Australia’s sovereign partners to build the new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines ASC(Opens in a new tab/window) and BAE(Opens in a new tab/window).