AUKUS: Western Australia to lose jobs to Adelaide as 100 high-tech roles confirmed to be in Lockheed Martin

Complex work to prepare Australia’s future AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will be completed in Adelaide, with the Albanese government deciding against sending the high-tech jobs to the West where the fleet will eventually be based.

Under the AUKUS program, Australia is expected to acquire at least three Virginia-class boats from the United States in the 2030s which will operate from Perth’s HMAS Stirling, before the arrival of a new locally built fleet known as SSN-AUKUS in the 2040s.

On Friday the government confirmed it had selected Lockheed Martin as the “preferred Combat System Integration Partner for Australia’s future fleet of sovereign Virginia class submarines,” while insisting “initial work to be undertaken in WA”.

According to Defence Minister Richard Marles an expected “additional 100 jobs will be created at Lockheed Martin Australia in support of the Combat System Integration Partner (CSIP) program.”

“The CSIP is pivotal to the effectiveness of Australia’s future Virginia class submarines – including through the implementation and testing of combat systems improvements, and supporting crews in conducting maintenance and repair on the combat system,” the government said on Friday.

Combat system integration, the engineering process of merging a submarine’s sensors, command and control, software, weapons, and communications, is currently done in WA and Sydney by Raytheon Australia for the Navy’s ageing fleet of Collins-class boats.

Australia’s diesel-electric Collins-class fleet and the US Navy’s Virginia-class boats use the AN/BYG-1 Submarine Combat System, and in America combat system integration work is overseen by Lockheed Martin, not Raytheon.

Now the West Australian can reveal the Australian Submarine Agency is not planning to use Western Australia’s Henderson Defence Precinct for any of the initial work on the Virginia-class combat systems integration, which will instead occur in Adelaide.

The decision has divided opinion in the defence sector with some industry figures describing it as a betrayal of WA, while others insist the complex work was always expected to head to South Australia where Lockheed Martin’s workforce is based.

“This is the greatest swindle that could be perpetrated against WA defence industry,” a senior defence industry figure not directly involved with the project tells The West Australian.

“We were led to believe jobs for the Virginia submarine would be concentrated in Henderson. Now we discover the smartest roles will go to Adelaide,” the industry veteran says, speaking on the condition anonymity.

“Little wonder the government tried to hide this announcement by putting it out with the trash on a Friday afternoon.”

Confirmation WA will miss out on the lucrative Virginia-class combat system integration work have emerged as concerns persist of the progress of transforming the Henderson defence precinct which is slated to build Army’s landing craft fleets and eventually Japanese designed Mogami frigates.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has declined to comment, but the revelations of the snub to WA come as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to fly into Perth on Tuesday as he continues to sell Labor’s budget which contained broken tax promises.