Richard Marles

Our preference actually from the outset would have been to have in-service submarines because

what it would mean was that we were operating a consistent class of submarines.

We need to be chasing simplicity as much as we can.

And so, actually, this is a really good outcome for us.

It's better financially, and we're pleased that America is able to do this.

The centre of competition is a more fundamental proposition, whether the international system will be governed by rules applied universally or by power applied selectively.

And that question matters most for the states that are not great powers.

When the rules apply, smaller states have agency.

When the rules yield to power, sovereignty becomes, as others have put it, the purview of the powerful.

And no state in this room today, whatever its size, is well served by that outcome.

The international rules-based order is imperfect.

It was built by imperfect actors.

It has been applied inconsistently.

And it has sometimes been invoked by powerful states to protect their own prerogatives.

Southeast Asia understands that more than most.

But we are so much better off with it than without it.

And it has been to our region's great benefit that the United States has chosen to invest in that order based on an enlightened conception of its own self-interest.

The task before us, all of us, including the great powers, is the renovation of that order, not its dismemberment.

And in the maritime domain, that renovation is urgent.

The seabed is becoming a battlefield.