By Will Nicholas in Canberra

Almost 300 apprentices and trainees will be encouraged to swap carpentry, plumbing and electrics to maintain some of the world’s most advanced nuclear submarines under the $386 billlion AUKUS agreement.

The so-called Tradie2Trainer and early-career programs are being announced on Thursday, the day after West Australian marine propulsion firm VEEM inked a national-first deal to supply Huntington Ingalls Industries, the US’s largest naval shipbuilder.

The first submarine being delivered under AUKUS, USS Colorado, is moored at WA’s HMAS Stirling, where 100 Australian personnel are helping maintain it.

The 10-year-old Virginia-class sub is one of up to four Australia can expect to receive from Washington under the five-year-old agreement.

There was outrage in June over the US deciding to only deliver second-hand subs, and concern Canberra’s most important security partner would not be able to build the kit on time.

On Wednesday, Defence Industry Minister Pay Conroy dismissed those fears, saying both countries’ workforces were going at full throttle.

“They’re not just mobilising the US industrial base, they’re mobilising the Australian industrial base,” he said.

The Virginia is the US’s top-of-the-range “fast-attack” sub, capable of topping 46km/h compared with Australia’s diesel-electric Collins-class subs’ underwater top speed of 37km/h.

Washington is building them at a rate of two a year and confident they will arrive in a timely fashion, Mr Conroy relayed.

“Getting suppliers in Australia into their supply chain increases their production rates, increases the chances of them hitting those targets, and increases the chances that we’ll get our submarine,” he said.

“But secondly, we’re getting more help from Australian others.”

The Tradie2Trainer and early-career schemes announced on Thursday will amount to $88 million, part of what Labor says will be a whole-of-nation undertaking eventually delivering 20,000 jobs.

As bits of AUKUS come online, opposition bubbles away, including from former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie, who last week took to the National Press Club with former Labor MP Peter Garrett to argue the nuclear subs purchases be scrapped.

The retired admiral called the deal, agreed to by the Morrison government in 2021, an act of subterfuge and was surprised Labor did not consider abandoning it upon coming to power the following year.

But the program was here to stay, Defence Minister Richard Marles said while announcing the new career incentives on Wednesday.

“AUKUS is a once‑in‑a‑generation national endeavour that will shape Australia’s future for decades,” he said.

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