A newly negotiated AUKUS agreement will lead to “significant” savings, Defence Minister Richard Marles said today, while typing ‘used Virginia-class nuclear submarines’ into Facebook Marketplace.
Marles said using Marketplace was a great way to source good quality heavy weaponry at a discount price. “I’ve just typed in a search for ‘nuclear submarines’ within a 15,000 km radius of Canberra and there’s loads of options. Not for nuclear submarines exactly, it’s mainly for model submarines, but still, that’s more concrete than anything we were going to get under the old AUKUS agreement”.
He said he’d already got in touch with a guy selling a used WWII submarine. “It’s got a few holes in it, and it needs a bit of work apparently, but it’s several billion dollars cheaper than what we’ve been quoted from the US. I’ve sent him a message saying, ‘Is this still available?’ but I haven’t heard back from him yet.
“There’s another guy that’s got an ‘as-new’ nuclear submarine for sale that he can deliver next week. He’s asked for a $5 million deposit, and wanted to communicate directly about it on WhatsApp. I haven’t heard from him since I sent the deposit over, but it sounds pretty promising”.
