Shorten’s Trump fears on AUKUS revealed – The Age
Updated ,first published
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Former Labor minister Bill Shorten raised concerns about the prospect of Donald Trump being elected and compromising the AUKUS deal in a crunch cabinet meeting in 2023 when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won endorsement for the landmark submarine deal.
As AUKUS critics begin a public inquiry designed to air scepticism, this masthead has unearthed details of the key federal cabinet meeting in which Labor signed off on the AUKUS “optimal pathway”.
Details of the cabinet debate, confirmed by three sources not able to speak publicly about the confidential and politically sensitive deliberations, reveal longstanding questions at high levels about the possibility the AUKUS plan could be derailed.
Shorten, Tanya Plibersek and Ed Husic all put forward queries about the deal in the cabinet meeting held in March 2023, the sources said.
Eight months ahead of the November 2023 US election, Shorten spoke about the unpredictability of Trump’s position on AUKUS should he win. AUKUS sceptics in the Pentagon reviewed AUKUS in the Trump administration’s first year, but the pact is powering ahead, albeit with three used submarines from the US rather than two secondhand and one new one.
Then the NDIS minister, Shorten is a Labor Right stalwart who supports the US alliance and securing the best nuclear submarines from any country.
The former Labor leader, never an ally of the prime minister, queried if crewed nuclear submarines would remain cutting-edge technology in decades’ time, as more attention is given to uncrewed undersea vehicles.
Finally, he talked in cabinet about the risk of making such a big bet on a project that made Australia reliant on a global supply chain with Australia as its last link.
Shorten, now the vice-chancellor at University of Canberra, refused to be drawn on his remarks when asked by this masthead on Thursday, citing cabinet confidentiality. Plibersek and Husic also declined to comment.
Shorten, Plibersek and Husic all supported the government’s decision to back AUKUS. Yet the revelations about the cabinet back-and-forth point to the daunting challenges in delivering the gargantuan defence and industrial undertaking and highlight the trade-offs and risks involved.
It also reveals debate about the pact was more intensive than was previously known, after years of complaints from unions, anti-war activists, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and others on the Left, who argue that Labor did not do due diligence before signing up to the Morrison-era pact.
“There was at least some questioning and debate among ministers,” one source involved in the original decision-making said.
The 2023 cabinet meeting, following separate meetings of the national security committee, signed off on the “optimal pathway” of acquiring three Virginia class submarines from the early 2030s to bridge the gap before new custom AUKUS submarines were built.
Husic, now a backbencher and factional opponent of Defence Minister Richard Marles, went public last week questioning the latest arrangement to acquire three submarines that are already in service.
Former US ambassador and ASIO boss Dennis Richardson argued the change was irrelevant.
“One of the greatest beat-ups I’ve ever seen in my life has been the tut-tutting about us acquiring three in-service Virginias as opposed to one that’s new, and two in-service,” he said in Sydney.
Gareth Evans, who served as foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, used the first day of hearings at a public inquiry into AUKUS to savage the nuclear-powered submarine plan as “misconceived from the outset”, arguing it has made Australia a “compliant cash cow” to the United States.
The long-time critic of the scheme argued the AUKUS submarine plan is likely to be regarded as one of the country’s worst foreign policy and defence mistakes as he called for the Albanese government to quickly develop a back-up plan in case the pact fell over.
Evans’ view was rejected by former cabinet colleague Kim Beazley, who argued it would be a colossal mistake for Australia to abandon AUKUS in favour of a less capable type of submarine and said it was better for Australia to acquire three in-service Virginia-class submarines than the original plan.
“Those who deny, or ignore, the loss of Australian sovereign independence that is necessarily involved in our commitment to the AUKUS project are simply defying reality,” Evans said in a submission to the inquiry.
“And those who accept the reality of our loss of sovereign agency but actually applaud it as a price worth paying for our protection … seem to have lost not only any sense of national pride, but of Australia’s national interest.”
The crowd-funded public inquiry, which held its first hearings in Melbourne on Thursday, is chaired by former Labor minister and anti-nuclear campaigner Peter Garrett.
Beazley, defence minister from 1984 to 1990, urged Australians not to take for granted the opportunity to acquire some of the world’s stealthiest and fastest submarines.
“We need a platform of that calibre if we can get it. The balance of power is shifting interminably against us and we really need something potent,” he said.
“To blow this opportunity would be a strike against our national survivability. I hope we continue with it for the sake of my children and grandchildren.”
The Australian War Memorial chair said conventional diesel submarines were becoming increasingly easy to detect, strengthening the case for nuclear-powered submarines for an island continent like Australia.
“Anything that can be seen can be hit; if it can’t be seen it can survive,” he said.
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