It's a bit embarrassing actually. When they placed the order the LHD landing craft they spec'd them on the Abram's current weight and left no room for future growth. So between then and now the Army has updated the Abram's to keep them capable and guess what, they weight more now and the landing craft can no longer transport them......
So Choules is actually the only ship in the RAN that can currently land Abram tanks...... I presume sometime in the future they will do something with the landing craft to overcome this, but I have no idea when that will be. In the mean time, for Adelaide and Canberra to land them, they have to be stripped down, which sort of defeats the purpose.
The Adelaide and Canberra are perfectly capable of transporting the tanks and can embark and discharge them via cargo entries if tied up to a wharf, just not via the landing craft.
Robert