People going oh nuclear subs are more expensive. Dont think people grasp the extreme scale the attack class budget had blown out. So australia uses whole life cost accounting on its defence budgets
The original attack class was claimed to be about 60 billion for 12 subs over their service life time. Our equiv of GAO reviewed this and actually found government documents stating that it would over 100 billion and probably closer to 120 billion life time cost
AUKUS is projected to cost 360 billion over its lifetime, is the virginia (ignoring the SSN AUKUS) 3 times better sub than the proposed attack class. Others may disagree but I think absolutely yes is the answer