The only thing about these subs that makes it easier for Australia to get nuclear weapons is that they could sail to other countries and collect them.
I did read this a few days ago but it only struck home on rereading in in the consortum news article, AUKUS: Activists Blast the ‘Anti-China’ Military Pact.
Critics of the alliance, however, worry that it “could still indirectly spur the proliferation of weapons” by setting “a dangerous precedent for countries to exploit a loophole in the NPT,” The Guardian reported. The NPT allows countries without atomic bombs, such as Australia, “to build nuclear-powered submarines, and to remove the fissile material they need for the submarine reactors from the stockpile monitored by the global watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, opening up the possibility it could be diverted to making weapons.
Given the stockpiles of fissile material nuclear countries already have it’s probably not that relevant in the grand scheme of things but it still gives pause for thought.