Greg Sheridan in the Australian newspaper says, "“There’s every chance AUKUS could turn out to be the enemy of Australian defence self-reliance, or of any defence capability at all. Worse, it could ultimately go the way of the French submarines. People will lose faith in it because it’s not remotely on track to deliver anything at all in a meaningful time frame.”
He adds that Australia is the only country to adopt nuclear subs without increasing defence spending. Committing to Morrison’s AUKUS is the most consequential decision of the Albanese government. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates it will cost $50bn between 2027 and 2033 alone. Our navy, already under-resourced, will have to make painful savings. Other defence platforms will be “cannibalised”. The verb is Sheridan’s. Attack-class French sub in the early 2030s would plainly have been a simpler option with less stress for other defence assets. The whole fleet would have been a bargain at a trifling $90bn compared with the half-trillion-dollar price tag for the nuclear Virginia Clas SSNs alternative arriving in the 2050s.
According to Bob Carr, the right of Australian politics is now dissenting from the AUKUS consensus. It came from Sharri Markson on Sky, who may have collected insights from senior figures in the Coalition and right-wing US circles. On September 19 she said there are politicians in Washington “jeopardising the AUKUS deal”.
An article appearing the same day in the Australian Financial Review, by former ASPI director Michael Shoebridge, confirms withdrawal of support for Labor from supporters of US-Australia strategic integration. Shoebridge confirmed the US congressional resistance now has to be taken seriously. He writes: “US congress continues to debate Pentagon plans to transfer US Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the early 2030s, as America’s own domestic debate about its military capabilities and its submarine industrial base challenges gathers momentum.”
It probably won’t be Joe Biden but his successor who will make the decision whether to sell us Virginia-class subs or preserve them for American’s own order of battle. He or she will take office, Shoebridge says, “…with fresh eyes about America’s own defence and what value AUKUS brings to the US, at what costs and pains.”
The US Navy will then have its lowest number of attack submarines, 46 instead of 66. That’s when the AUKUS deal has the US handing over at least two to Australia.
It might not even be a decision for the next president but the president inaugurated on January 20, 2029.
The US embassy must be aware federal Labor has told Labor figures in the Illawarra that any decision about an east coast submarine base at Port Kembla won’t be started till the 2030s and take 10 years anyway. Selecting a site for the storage of highly enriched uranium could take more than a decade. A nuclear-waste repository in South Australia was as emphatically rejected by Liberals as Labor.
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