Address: AUKUS - Canberra, ACT

16 Sep 2021

PRIME MINISTER: Good morning from Australia.

I am very pleased to join two great friends of freedom and of Australia, Prime Minister Johnson and President Biden.

Today, we join our nations in a next generation partnership, built on a strong foundation of proven trust.

We have always seen the world through a similar lens.

We have always believed in a world that favours freedom, that respects human dignity, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states and the peaceful fellowship of nations.

And while we have always looked to each other to do what we believe is right, we have never left it to each other. Always together, never alone.

Our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific.

This affects us all. The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures.

To meet these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level.

A partnership that seeks to engage, not to exclude. To contribute, not take. And to enable and empower, not to control or coerce.

And so, friends, AUKUS is born.

A new enhanced trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States - AUKUS.

A partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our defence forces are all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all.

AUKUS will also enhance our contribution to our growing network of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region - ANZUS, our ASEAN friends, our bilateral strategic partners, the Quad, Five Eyes countries and, of course, our dear Pacific family.

The first major initiative of AUKUS will be to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia. Over the next eighteen months we will work together to seek to determine the best way forward to achieve this.

This will include an intense examination of what we need to do to exercise our nuclear stewardship responsibilities here in Australia.

We intend to build these submarines in Adelaide, Australia, in close cooperation with the United Kingdom and the United States.

But let me be clear, Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability.

And we will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

Australia has a long history of defence cooperation with the United States and the United Kingdom.

For more than a century, we have stood together for the cause of peace and freedom.

Motivated by the beliefs we share, sustained by the bonds of friendship we have forged, enabled by the sacrifice of those who have gone before us, and inspired by our shared hope for those who will follow us.

And so, today, friends, we recommit ourselves to this cause and a new AUKUS vision.