How fascinating it is to see Yaron Finkelstein’s name up in lights lately. The quintessential backroom Liberal operative and former Scott Morrison staffer is suddenly out and about just as the big dollars on defence and AUKUS are up for grabs and a defining moment at the G7 in Canada has beckoned.
Finkelstein is not the only one, of course. It’s not every day that the chance comes to double the defence budget. The lure of it has brought out a cavalcade of Canberra’s one-time movers and shakers, all with approximately the same message: the Albanese government has dropped the ball on defence; it has been diffident about AUKUS; it has let America down and the US is now calling us out for the freeloaders we are.
Finkelstein described to Sky News the US decision to review the deal this way: “There’s a bit of a legacy, a perception, about [whether] our heart is in it. They had a view that maybe we don’t want this as much as when we first started.”
Hard Labor
It’s instructive to look closely at the messaging. Finkelstein is a veteran of the dark arts of politics. For more than a decade he was with the Liberal Party’s long-term polling and campaign advisers Crosby Textor (CT). He ended up running CT’s Australian operations. From there he jumped into Morrison’s office as the then-prime minister’s principal private secretary, in a move which, in perception terms, blurred the line between the PM’s office and the influence peddlers of Crosby Textor.
Finkelstein thus had a pivotal role in policy and communications for nigh on four years. This includes the period when AUKUS was brought into being, conveniently, in the months before the 2022 election. He now runs his own consultancy and is a director of the Liberal Party’s Menzies Research Centre.
There may or may not be a co-ordinated campaign, but the consistent narrative is that the US-Australia alliance is imperilled by Labor.
Hockey sticks
A former treasurer and now Washington fixture, Joe Hockey, made the link when he surmised that the US had launched its review into AUKUS because of tensions between Canberra and Washington over defence spending. Angus Taylor, the opposition’s new defence spokesman, was beating the same drum last week, blaming the Albanese government for inflaming the very reasonable folks in Donald Trump’s White House by refusing to jump to the demands of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth:
“You don’t project strength by undermining alliances. Australia must show it’s serious, consistent, and committed. If [the AUKUS] review has been triggered by the Albanese government’s refusal to commit to increased defence spending and its sanctioning of two Israeli ministers, then the government has very serious questions to answer about how it is managing our most critical allies.”
If there was one lesson the Liberals might have learnt from the election wipeout, surely it was that siding with the Trump team is not the most deft of political moves. The zeitgeist has changed. The US Pew Research Center produced findings which confirm that Australians are world leaders in distrusting the US government. A Pew survey showed that 77% of Australians have no confidence in Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs; 91% considered he was arrogant; 81% said he was dangerous; and only 18% thought he was honest. It turns out only voters in Sweden have stronger anti-Trump views.
No miracle workers
If there is a campaign which uses AUKUS and defence spending as a strategy to attack the government, there are a few weak links to address, none involving Australia’s financial commitment. The most obvious is the US president himself who spent his time at the G7 today wondering why Vladimir Putin couldn’t be there.
Forget the geopolitics and the political games. As Four Corners underlined last night, AUKUS struggles for the most mundane of reasons: there are not enough skilled workers to build nuclear submarines. Full stop. This has been identified as a threat to AUKUS for at least two years and all but guarantees that the US will be unable to build submarines at the rate it needs to for its own security. It simply doesn’t have the manufacturing base. And this time it can’t outsource it to China.
Ne’er the twain shall meet
The pressure on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to toe the US line was, of course, due to come to a head in a meeting with Trump at the G7. Some in the media had feverishly imagined this to be no less than the most important meeting in Albanese’s decades in politics, giving him the chance to prove that Australia is a trustworthy partner. One overwrought reporter even suggested Albanese should surprise Trump by offering the US more than Australia has agreed to pay under the AUKUS deal.
Trump’s decision to leave before meeting Albanese was somehow a fitting ending to a hollow campaign. Maybe Vladimir had called with some further thoughts on his role as Middle East peacemaker.
Joe Hockey is another leaner of Australian Politics, one of the conga line of ex liberal politicians moving into defence industry lobbying. They are all panicked that the gravy train will derail if Australians discover we will never see a nuclear submarine and Aukus is canned. Hockey repeats the mantra that Trump is transactional and then claims the biggest global defence spender, the US, will come running to support Australia, good luck with that!
Listen to experts like Hugh White not leaners like Joe Jockey.
My immediate reaction is that these guys spruiking AUKUS are panicking because of loss of their cut from the deal. Trump is definitely not to be trusted, they do not have the workforce to manufacture these subs
( too busy tossing workers out of the country) and the Liberal Party does not act in the best interests of Australia but use our funds to finance their buddies. As 4 Corners clearly laid out the state of play last night, it would be very much against our national security to put America first and Australia second.
The whole premise of the article and discussion is flawed. AUKUS makes zero strategic sense. Australia’s security lies in Asia where our major trading, political and cultural links lie.
The world is moving on from USA hegemony and the senior politicians of both major parties are unable and/ or unwilling (lack of wisdom and courage?) to grasp this.
Even contemplating AUKUS is doing Australia a disservice.
I thought from the start that the AUKUS deal was a dud, and what has transpired this week enforces that view. We are expected to pay billions for a product the US is incapable of delivering
I’m at a loss as to understand why we are expecting the Chinese to invade Australia, if that’s the reason for the American alliance we should consult a map, Siberia is next door to China they are already there, with farms and labor, the local Russian population is declining the Chinese is growing.
American owned media in Australia are all behind it.
How utterly surprising.
This is the perfect time for Australia to exert it’s independence from Trumps US regime and dissolve its AUKUS contracts. The PM has a unique opportunity to navigate the country away from the american faecal storm and explore the options for ships/subs from Asia and/or Europe.
Totally agreed!
C’noath!
Totally agree.
Totally agre in your views Kevin! Hope some in high places read our views act on them rather than dithering around trying please Trump? Forget him as he will forget us if fits his views?
Well overdue time to re-visit “Son of Collins” – this remains as a truly viable option!
Agree walk away from AUKUS. We’ve paid nearly $1 billion! Imagine what other defence capabilities we coulld purchase from Asia/or Europe; and the critical question for me, are we planning on how to defend this vast shoreline and country of ours or are we planning to cosey up with the Disunited States of America and follow them into a war, or wars?
There are wars going on in Russia/Ukraine, Isreal/Hamas/Iran/Hezbollah, India/Pakistan, Africa. Who is using submarines? All are using Planes, Drones, Rockets etc. Why do we want submarines which will be useless in low tides?
Angus Taylor is right. “You don’t project strength by undermining alliances.” Can someone tell this to Donald Trump?
You’re completely right – although I don’t think Gussy saw it that way … too busy rattling his sabre. I hope Trump DOES can the subs. We don’t need them, and if this is how he treats a nation that has stood by the US for a loooong time, we’re better off without them – and him.
Well done Angus
The less Albo talks with/interacts with or bows down to Trump’s demands the better off we will be in the long run. So let’s celebrate the fact Trump went home from the G7 early! If Albo stands up to Trump (as he should) there will be retribution, whether it be the sort of humiliation based on complete inaccuracies in front of the press (that he did to Ukraine and South Africa), or simply an increase in tariffs and further demands to increase defense spending, there is never going to be a good outcome. Alternatively to kowtow to Trump would be a complete disaster. It always is with bullies!
Trump and all he stands for will (hopefully) pass (along with an Aukus agreement we should never have signed) and America will return to sanity. If this doesn’t happen, we can’t afford for them to be our strongest ally anyway as the current version of America is completely untrustworthy and no longer shares core values with Australia.
Well said Ian Wynne!
If Abalone manages to tear up this AUCKUS disaster, he’ll be an instant legend.More likely the demented Donny will do it for him win-win.And fools like Taylor operate as though nothing ever changes, as he steps out of the train wreck and blames somebody else.Why anyone would give him the time of day is amazing.
I’m waiting for that other po- faced IPA dropout, lance cadet Paterson to join the ADF if he wants a blue with China, otherwise he should keep his mealy mouth shut.
The way the LNP morons are behaving since having their arses handed to them, suggests they are heading for a well deserved oblivion.
Well said Harry! I can relate to all your views reading them over last few weeks! Trump appears be disaster for US – the once country we world wide so admired? appears now in total disaray last few years? Doubt we cannot depend them in crisis sadly?
The story being flogged by the Murdoch media, and the execrable James Massola at Nine, has a key flaw. Field Marshall Marles said he and the UK had known “for some time” that the US was conducting the AUKUS review. Unless “for some time” means “at the Shangri-La Dialogue” which was only days before the “the US is putting pressure on Australia to spend more on defence” story emerged, then I reckon it’s rubbish.
After the Andrew Greene expose on Media Watch last night, I have no trust in any reporting in the mainstream media concerning defence and strategic issues. Too many of them seem to be living in the deep pockets of the military-industrial complex, and just regurgitating the briefings they are given there, in the intelligence organisations and from the Defence/US-funded ASPI.
Whitlam pulled Australia out of Vietnam.And what happened to him??
An opportunity for Albanese to shine, to stand out as a great leader? Nah…I suspect what will transpire is power to the status quo and a ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ to ex Liberal pollies cashing in on the AUKUS deal. The only commentator emerging from this complete f#$%k up is the one and only Paul Keating. We can only hope TRUMP blows AUKUS to smithereens.
Gareth Evans and Bob Carr have also both weighed on the stupidity and rampant self-interest of the various individuals involved. Can only hope POTUS’ self-interest Trumps theirs..
As pointed out by 4 Corners, the more objective (non Aussie naval Officers, non USA Republicans) commentators have rejected the AUKUS subs deal as too one-sided, too costly, too futuristic and bound to fail. Hugh White (in various articles as extracts from his QE) Turnbull, Keating and Carr have also recommended Albo use the current USA Review to drop the old deal and go for a new deal. The new deal could include a more integrated approach – yanks and brits supply part finance, the hardware, nuke engines and high tech, Aussies provide part finance, sailors, maintenance, joint training and bases (maybe also use the Port of Darwin). Aussies also buy more satellites, air and marine drones and longer range missiles.
Interesting on 4 Corners that while Hammond and Mead, both currently serving in the RAN and thus bound to hold the line, were very enthusiastic, the retired officers, including Peter Bragg, who are able to speak freely, said it was a terrible deal and should be cancelled.
The orange arsehole is delusional. Don’t deal with him.
The AUKUS blind-side by Scummo was always going to end thus… The ‘No discussion with anyone about anything but let’s throw it at the wall and see if it’ll stick’ strategy is about right for the the sort of people the Liberals were during the nine LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG years of lies and total bastardry they foisted upon Australians…
The recent Federal Election seems to have shown just how little Australians thought of the Extreme Uber Ultra Reactionary Lying Conservatives when they threw the blackguards out on their ear, saving the best for the joyful eye-watering demise of Dutton, who personified the Australian equivalent of the malevolence of The Orange Turd…
When AUKUS took us all by surprise when it was announced, many of us knew, deep in our hearts, that this was N E V E R E V E R going to go anywhere because it was apparant to good old Blind Freddy that the way things were going in the US with their sssllllooooowwwww manufacture of subs for their own fleet wasn’t moving anthing like it needed to for the US to get the numbers they needed for their own fleet. Britain wasn’t far behind, so the huge question that came into thinking people’s minds was “How the Actual Farque is this going to happen, and when will we get our subs…???
It’s now very clear that the answer was always going to be… NEVAH! How does NEVAH sound to you, Skippy? Oh, and just so you know, If we can’t get them to you, YOU NEVER GET YOUR MONEY BACK EITHER, and that’s just because that’s just the kinda liars we are…
SO, as I mentioned in an earlier piece, let’s see what the French might be able to do for us- if we ask them nicely… Or the Japanese- they make their own subs too.
From what was on Four Corners last night, these subs are SO BLOODY HUGE, it appears they won’t even be able to sail around Australia under water because the Torres Straits / Timor Sea / Arafura Sea is too shallow to allow them easy sailing… Fat lot of good these huge things are going to do for us.
What a total cock-up of… Unbelievably Prodigious Super Uber Huge ‘submarine’ proportions…
I reckon all the pollies ought to go out and ask Australians what they think of the US and their lies now, seeing as they’ve got nearly a billion dollars from us that we’ll prolly never see again… I’d be out there with a lot of people demonstrating. There would be A BLOODY LOT of us…
Singapore bought German subs last year. Singapore is a lot closer to any potential enemies than we are. Also, I don’t think think the Singaporeans waste money. It will have been a well-considered purchase and acquisition.
…and there ya go- ANOTHER ‘solution’ that may just be what Oz needs to make things right for us…
There is a lot of strong anti-Government opinion about how Albo and team are dealing with Aukus, our Defence arrangements with the US and, how we should deal with China. The Lowy Institute have just released their annual report on Australian voter attitudes’ to Foreign Policy.
William Bowe at Poll Bludger has published the following excerpts which generally reveal that Australians are broadly in favour of the Government’s policies. So, politically, Albo is on the money again and got the mood of the electorate just right. Wisely, he’s not getting too far ahead of Public Opinion on these matters.
Seems the loudest and most passionate aren’t necessarily where the electorate is at the moment.
“The Lowy Institute has published the full report of its annual survey of attitudes to foreign policy, conducted from March 3 to 16 from a sample of 2117. A taster was provided early in the election campaign in the shape of a question on which leader would be more competent at handling foreign policy, on which Anthony Albanese led Peter Dutton 41% to 29%.
The survey finds trust in the United States to act responsibly in the world at 36%, down 20 points on last year and by far the worst result going back to 2006 (the previous low being 51% in the last year if the first Trump presidency). Eighty per cent nonetheless continue to hold that the US alliance is important to Australia’s security, down three on last year; 57% say Australia should remain close to the US rather than distance itself, down seven, and 63% hold that the US would come to Australia’s aid if it were attacked. Support for the AUKUS nuclear submarines plan was effectively unchanged on last year, with 67% in favour and 32% opposed. While an even 49% supported and opposed Trump’s demands that US allies spend more on defence, opinion of seven other keynote Trump policies was negative, with mass deportations of undocumented immigrants at the low end (42% support, 56% oppose) and tariffs (18% support, 81% oppose) and pressuring Denmark over Greenland (10% support, 89% oppose) rating worst.
A regular question on whether China should be viewed more as an economic partner than a security threat produced a net positive result for the first time since 2020, with respective results of 50% and 47%. Nonetheless, 69% believed China will become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years, down two from last year, 56% believed it would be the most powerful country in ten, compared with 27% holding out for the United States. An even 45% considered Trump and Xi Jinping the “more reliable partner for Australia”. Japan scored highest out of eight major countries as trusted to act responsibly in the world, at 90%, with China on 20% and Russia 11%. A “confidence in world leaders” question had the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, France, Japan, the United Kingdom and Ukraine rated positively by between 59% and 63%; Peter Dutton doing a good deal worse at 41% and 52%; and only Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un rating worse than Donald Trump.”
https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/report/2025/#report
Thanks for sharing that. it’s really helpful.
I watched Patricia Karvelas’ unedifying ‘interview’ of Penny Wong this afternoon. Sen Wong showed great patience with Ms Karvelas’ facile take on this media beat up.
It seems Patsy is in the school of thought that Albo meeting Trump is the biggest concern for Australia and Australians..
It’s not.
Albo to his credit hasn’t gone crawling and sucking up to Trump as the erstwhile opposition leader was going to do. The Liberal party leftovers and shills in the MSM are showing how out of touch they are with the average Aussie.
With the attitudes expressed by the LNP luminaries on this issue one realises the extent of the bullet we missed by electing the current Labor government.
The sooner AUKUS is ditched the better.
As Paul Keating has been reportedvas saying, maybe the Americans will do for us what we should have initiated ourselves.
I am a baby boomer of 78 years, and at 20 years old, a draft dodger and an activist against the Vietnam War who happens to loathe the whole idea of AUKUS, buying nuclear submarines, and toadying to US imperialism. I will keep saying it because it needs to be said. AUKUS, is a racist, retrograde, white supremacist, Churchillian (with all the disgustingly racist, and imperialist implications that carries), 19th Century view of the Asia Pacific region, revealing that what we have done is throw away our own independent sovereignty and join a paternalistic, racist, and privileged white man’s club trying to recapture a dead imperialist past, unlike Aotearoa, with one country, (the UK) being a dead empire and the other, (the USA) a degenerate, decadent, declining and decaying empire. The USA and UK are North American and European states respectively, but we are very much an Asian-Pacific country. We will need to live with the justified opprobrium of the Asian and Pacific countries), including our close neighbours, (including Aotearoa), when they see that we have thrown our hand in with the two most arrogant capitalist regimes on the planet, One thought, how would the USA react if China established bases in international waters off the US west coast, near Hawaii or in the Caribbean? I think that question was answered when the USA in 1962 threatened nuclear war in concert with its illegal blockade of Cuba, a sovereign state by the way, and didn’t invoke the Monroe Doctrine either. The Monroe Doctrine is purely an American domestic/imperialist doctrine and has no force or recognition under international law.
Rather than wasting taxpayers’ money on useless white elephants, such as $368B+ for useless fucking nuclear submarines, building a stadium in Hobart, and giving tax-free gifts of taxpayers’ money to vampire and leech-like racketeer landlords, it should be spent on building publicly owned housing to overcome the national scandal of homelessness. If the little grey dormouse canary-coloured Labour jellyfish had any intestinal fortitude (recent experience suggests that it is sadly lacking here), then it would ban capitalist investment in all accommodation and nationalise all such existing privately owned rental accommodation by corporations and investors, without compensation, and make it all public housing, with rental being pegged at 5% of net income
YeeHaaaa Bob! YesireeBobski!!! Let’s do it!!! Time’s ‘a wastin’, and the sooner we give younguns a chance at what we had, the better off we’ll all be.
I’ve been waitin’ 20 years for ‘the young’ to outnumber us and change things right, so let’s get workin’!
Well said indeed!
The Coalition bequeathed
Australia the Aukus deal and they should be judged for their contribution. I can’t remember when the last green/white paper on defence was issued, but the time is ripe for another thorough review of defence needs and input from Liberal molluscs like Morrison, Pyne and Hockey should be avoided.
Aukus is the con of the century and the government ministers who signed up for it deserve nothing less than a life sentence
The sad truth is that Aukus was conceived by two dim-wits in Scott Morrison and Boris Johnston. Morrison successfully wedged a timid Labor Party led by Albanese with zero due diligence from Labor as they were petrified to upset Murdoch pre-election. Now three years and a thumping election win later, let’s see if Albo has any backbone and pushes back on Taco boy in respct of defence spending.
Regarding trade, he needs to offer the US the choice to either levy tariffs or lose the FTA. He can’t have both as tariffs are anti free trade and the US enjoys a huge trade surplus with Australia. Money or the gun.
As for Angus Taylor, the hard right think tanks and right wing media, if you lined them up Indian file you’d have a wind tunnel.
Taylor showed his lack of ability during the election and is thoroughly underwhelming as the alternative to Susan Ley which is no high bar as Librral leader. These sycophants would sell Australia down the river to win the political game domestically yet call themselves patriots. What a bunch of drongos they are.
Finally, let’s just consider what we could buy with $368 billion if we withdrew from Aukus. A he’ll of a lot of marine and airborne drone weapons and lots more to defend our country. Forget subs as the answer to our defensive prayers and think more expansively about options more suitable to defend the world’s largest island.
I would have thought US’s call for us to increase defence spending might have acknowledged the $300+ billion for AUKUS. And if it doesn’t perhaps they might look to the recent history of purchases of Tanks, F 35’s, AWAC’s,
C130’s,Orions etc, acknowledge who sold them to us.
We locked ourselves into the “interoperability” dance that leads us to buy US made materiel and AUKUS is just the next chapter.
Our history of purchases from the US will be ignored at our cost; from the era of the 1960’s F111 Carry Through Box fiasco, C130 A Hercules defective wings, the two ex-US Navy junk supply ships bought uninspected and, the Wedgetail AWAC that took years to arrive and all capped by the F35. And we think we are smart enough to not get caught again?
To summerise all of the above:
It has become bleeding obvious to us all about what Australia has to do AND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
Say thank you but no thank you Mr Trump. Because of all your procrastinating, we have changed our minds. We are cancelling our order for your second hand or even new subs and we would like our money back please.
As for the tarrifs, we should not lower ourselves to engage in any further discussions with Mr Trump. We are clever enough and smart enough to work our way around them by finding other markets for our goods.
In the meantime, sadly we can all stand by and watch as the United States of America IMPLODES, slowly but surely.
“Finkelstein thus had a pivotal role in policy and communications for nigh on four years.” and its a brew that stinks to high heaven. Funny how his surname mirrors what he is, a fink, which is a very unpleasant or contemptible person.
Inversion language and grandstanding are the tools of trade from John Howard onwards, so yeah a weird kind of me too political movements.
The biggest lie peddled to the Australian public since WW2 is that the Yanks are obliged to come to our defense under the ANZUS agreement. It is NOT the same as NATO where every member is committed to come to the aid of another member should they be attacked. This being one of the main reasons Putin is alarmed at the prospect of former soviet states joining NATO………..he would not only be engaging that former stare, he would be taking on every other NATO member as well.
Under ANZUS, the USA only has to CONSIDER assisting Australia should we be attacked. I think it’s obvious which they would go under an increasingly isolationist “America First” policy.
As Robert Pettit observes, the “world is moving on from US hegemony”. Indeed. The US is moving on from it’s hegemonic position. Hegemons – empires – do not fall in a single deisive cash; it is an evolution, or more a devolution. The US has been on this path for a while as underlined by its ever ballooning debt. The cost of running carrier groups at sea run to the GDP of of a middle power. This is exacerbated by the occupation of the White House by one of the most profoundly ignorant if, not profoundly stupid, presidents whose empty bluster is only exceeded by his avarice, naked financial self interest and desperate yearning for adulation.
China does not want a war, it wants those levers of economic hegemony the US has monopolised for some seven decades. I likely will be pushing up daisies, but it will get there at this rate. In this world AUKUS, for Australia, is a plain nonsense. We are are a middling ally; no forward arm of the US navy to be deployed at its will. Our interests lie firmly in Asia and the defence of our local region. The French conventional route was always the best.
When AUKUS was first announced, my immediate thought was that it was a wedge against the Labor party. However, when Albanese immediately and without broad consultation went with it, Morrison used it as a foot in the door for the nuclear industry in Australia and also had to come up with the goods for defence. This is perhaps why it is so ill-conceived.
On the first level is the delivery or not of the Virginia class submarines, subject to the whims of the US president. On the second level is the concept of building joint nuclear powered submarines Across three continents, as if they were a kit from IKEA. In addition, what is the world going to look like and technology going to be in 20 or 30 odd years time when they possibly arrive?
China may not be the biggest threat to America, perhaps that comes from within the US itself, where an irrational and impulsive leader, who is prone to tantrums like a two year old if he doesn’t get his way, who acts and threatens others like a 10 year old school yard bully, sits in the White House and is prepared to ignore legal frameworks and stoke division across the nation, aided and abetted by compliant Congress. Putin must be pissing himself laughing. He has to do nothing to bring down the great power.
China is currently training and graduating tens of thousands of scientists, engineers and other professionals per year. It either does now or soon will vastly outstrips US in manufacturing capability. It builds thousands of ships per year, the US a handful. China has new infrastructure while the USA’s is aging and crumbling. Meanwhile America saddles their best and brightest with debt, attacks the institutions of higher education and deters many from taking on further education. In fact, they now belittle university education as elitist. Xi must be pissing himself too.
By the time AUKUS subs arrive, the world climate will have heated well into the danger zone. Calling for greater defence spending will come at the expense of addressing global warming, so the fossil fuel industry and defense industries will be rubbing their hand with glee and pissing themselves laughing too. Just when we need cooperation, we get rising conflict. This is all a diversion from the greatest threat, global warming, and it’s the common people, the masses that will suffer. Not the likes of trump though, he’s out to get what he can while he can, much like all our ex MPs on the defense industry heavy train.
Hello David and all commentators:
Big response to the gathering storm about AUKUS.
but folks, what the U.S. Navy really wants is to home-port their Virginia subs here at Stirling Naval base, which is currently undergoing an $8b. upgrade to accommodate the bigger subs, their crews, and maintenance facilities at Henderson industrial facility, on the mainland, with no plans whatsoever to deal with the nuclear waste which will be generated when the subs are overhauled.
the Congressional Research Service has been flagging this for about a year – we all know they can’t build enough subs for their own agenda, but they could continue to send the virginias, American flagged, to this west coast base, closer to their perceived enemy, without having to bother with the finer details of AUKUS pillar One. They would get maintained here, go wherever & Whenever the U.S. Navy sees fit.
So, we would be sitting ducks, enabling the U.S. to wage war against China with our considerable help, apart from Pine Gap, Tindal Airforce Base, North-West Cape and all the other designated Australian military facilities to which the U.S. military has “unfettered Access” under the Force Posture Agreement, signed onto by the Abbott govt. back in 2014. Added to that now, is what Marles describes as “seamless interoperability”…….
We must not allow the former pollies, now arms traders (Hockey and Pine et.al) to lure the Australian Defence Force into greater expenditure. We need to be able to manage our own defence, without doing the bidding of the U.S., remembering always that we have no enemies of our own making.
Really good comment Jo. Thank you.
“Seamless interoperability”. What a phrase Sign us up under uncle Sam.
You’ve really got to wonder about how decisions are made at the highest levels in our defence department, not to mention other areas of procurement. As long as I can remember every major item purchased, be it ships, subs, planes / jets, even vehicles have problems, often major problems as well as significant cost over runs and delivery time delays. Then we spend time and money fixing them or bringing them up to requirement. Why and how does this happen? No doubt lobbyists and “ex pollitician” lobbyists have some thing to do with it and the promise of “jobs”.
Even in non defense area Tassie couldn’t organise and match cross strait ferries and berthing facilities. Antarctic resupply vessel couldn’t get under bridge in Hobart to refuel. I’ve worked in govt and there are some seriously useless bastards at all levels making decisions. Unfortunately some have major ramifications. Time for a royal commission / major inquiry into defense procurement
So, yes maybe that is all AUKUs is about to the US Jo, another forward base that we pay for. Nothing more, except Australia also pumping some cash in to help rejuvenate US shipyards and ship building