South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas used his appearance at the 50th Labor national conference in Adelaide on July 25, 2026, to push two arguments on his own party: stop talking down to One Nation voters, and stick with the Aukus submarine deal even though the United States keeps missing its production targets.

In an interview recorded for The Guardian's Australian Politics podcast, conducted by political editor Tom McIlroy and chief political correspondent Dan Jervis-Bardy, Malinauskas said progressives should stop condescending to Pauline Hanson's supporter base. The instinct in progressive politics is often to treat right-populist voters as a lost cause. Malinauskas is arguing the opposite: that tone matters as much as policy when Labor competes for those voters.

On Aukus, he took a different line. He acknowledged the deal has problems but argued that walking away would be riskier than pushing through. That argument is being tested by hard numbers out of Washington.

The United States admitted the week before July 25, 2026, that production of Virginia-class submarines has not increased. This is not a fresh failure. A Congressional Research Service report published in January 2026 found that the Virginia-class program has never reached a production rate of 2.0 boats per year and that since 2022 the rate has been stuck at roughly 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year (USNI News). A senior Pentagon official confirmed the rate remains below 1.2 boats per year despite extra funding. The Chief of Naval Operations said in August 2025 that there is no near-term fix to boost submarine production to the level Aukus requires (Janes).

The picture is clear. The US industrial base has been stuck at roughly 1.2 boats per year for four years. The Chief of Naval Operations has said the problem will take years to fix. The Pentagon concedes funding has not moved the needle. Aukus Pillar I — the part of the deal where Australia buys US-built Virginia-class submarines — depends on the US producing those boats at a rate it has never sustained for its own navy, before it can spare any for Australia.

This is the environment in which Malinauskas is asking his party to hold firm. His argument that walking away carries greater risk than staying the course invites an obvious follow-up: greater risk of what, and for whom? If the Virginias do not arrive, Australia is left with a capability gap — a period where the current Collins-class submarines are retired but the replacement boats have not shown up — and an industrial plan centred on a US shipyard that cannot meet its own domestic demand.

For the progressive left, the Aukus question and the One Nation question run on parallel tracks. Both involve a calculation about whether to engage with an unwelcome reality or hold a purer position at the margins. Malinauskas is arguing for engagement on both fronts.

The broader context here is that the Aukus leg of his argument is the weaker one. A voter can be persuaded without being condescended to; a submarine cannot be persuaded at all. It either arrives or it does not. The production figures suggest it will not arrive on the timeline Aukus assumes.

The 50th Labor conference in Adelaide was always going to be a moment for the factions to test the leadership's priorities. Malinauskas is positioning himself as a pragmatist on national security and a realist on electoral strategy. The question for the conference floor is whether the party agrees that pragmatism means accepting a submarine deal that the supplier's own navy says it cannot support in the near term.

The US admission that production has stalled gives the anti-Aukus forces in the Labor movement fresh ammunition. Malinauskas is betting that the risk of abandonment still outweighs the risk of delay. That bet rests on the assumption that the US industrial base will eventually catch up. The Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon, and the Chief of Naval Operations are all on the record saying that catch-up is not imminent.