“Vice-Admiral Mead, you’re free to go home … good to see you cracking a smile .”

The head of the Australian Submarine Agency had spent a withering three hours before Senate estimates, parrying a barrage of questions about Australia’s ambitious Aukus nuclear submarine plan: interrogatives on consultants, on hundreds of millions of dollars sent to US and UK shipyards, on sclerotic boat-building on both sides of the Atlantic.

But while so much focus has been on Australia’s nuclear submarines’ arrival, their price tag and their “ sovereign” status , the greatest challenge to the Aukus project, Mead told the Senate, would be finding the people to keep them afloat and at sea.

“Ensuring Australia has the workforce to deliver this program remains our biggest challenge ,” he said.

If Au

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