One week since he handed down a $368 billion policy to acquire nuclear-powered submarines in California, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is no closer to seeing it accepted but remains unbowed.
Labor’s two most influential foreign policy thinkers have spoken out against the AUKUS plan and its attendant commitment to make Australia a more active military presence in Asia, as criticism was aired by an MP in the lower house and others in caucus.
On Tuesday, a flustered Mr Albanese lashed out at a journalist who asked him if Labor was divided over AUKUS as he walked through Parliament, and his office did not respond to questions from The New Daily.
It seems increasingly likely that Mr Albanese may not be able to avoid a public debate about the major change to national defence policy –though there is not yet any serious suggestion it could be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
And like AUKUS inventor Scott Morrison, Mr Albanese so far seems assured of not having to “risk that on the Australian Labor Party”.
Hometown hero
In Sydney’s Marrickville, Mr Albanese’s political home, this weekend’s anniversary of the invasion of Iraq was marked with a debate on foreign policy folly two decades on.
Mr Albanese protested about the earlier invasion but did not appear at the Marrickville Town Hall this time to mark the anniversary and discuss its lessons.
Among those in attendance was Bob Carr, a former NSW premier and Labor foreign minister, who said AUKUS was based on the same foreign policy principle as the invasion of Baghdad – or a neoconservative conviction that America should never face challenge and that China was a threat that must be countered.
He said the tone of national foreign policy debate had shifted suddenly about five years ago.
“The biggest factor driving China panic is Australian security agencies who believe their counterparts in the US are disappointed that Australia might not go all the way with the USA,” he said.
“These agencies wanted this corrected.”
Australia’s top spook and former long-time Liberal Party adviser Andrew Shearer was named by the Wall Street Journal last week as the man who first negotiated AUKUS on the nation’s behalf after breakfast with an old friend and top White House adviser.
Mr Shearer did not respond to a request for interview or questions. But he was previously Mr Morrison’s cabinet secretary and oversaw an unprecedented expansion of secrecy provisions to hundreds of meetings.
Long-time Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans wrote that he was not convinced of AUKUS’s merit in a piece for The Guardian.
“The core issue is how comfortable we should be in so obviously shifting the whole decades-long focus of our defence posture away from the defence of Australia […] toward a posture of distant forward defence,” he said.
“The case must be made, not just asserted.”
Concerns flagged
In caucus on Tuesday MPs, including Libby Coker and Michelle Ananda-Rajah, presented Mr Albanese with questions about AUKUS cost and how Australia’s sovereign control of submarines would be assured.
“When the Australian flag is on any piece of equipment, Australia is in control,” Mr Albanese said according to a spokesman.
Australia is moving to secure the workforce to operate the subs but only has capacity to turn out five qualified crew members a year for vessels that need 130; dual crews with America will cover the shortfall.
“I fully support the government’s announced AUKUS plan,” Dr Ananda-Rajah said through a spokesman.
Josh Wilson, the MP for Fremantle, which includes a major shipyard, had on Monday raised questions about whether the deal served the national interest on the floor of the House.
“The AUKUS agreement – arrived at with some characteristically questionable secrecy by the former government, and some strange ministerial arrangements – is not a sports team of which we have all suddenly become life members,” Mr Wilson said.
“It will only be effective if we do our job as parliamentarians, which is to look closely and ask questions in order to guard against risk.”
Mr Albanese snapped at reporters who asked him questions about party unity whom he said had nearly bumped into his companions.
But in an unusual digression in response to Liberal MP Karen Andrews on the cost of living, Mr Albanese chided the former minister for complaining recently that she was still learning about the operation of cabinet government under Mr Morrison.
“Hang in there!” he said, teasing Ms Andrews for a recent TV interview in which she spoke candidly about the government and its shortcomings.
“You never know what might happen,” the PM added, acidly.
Mr Albanese’s department of Prime Minister & Cabinet refused a request to list all people who had been appointed a minister in the previous Parliament on Tuesday but did not say why.
Months ago, after a partial inquiry only into Mr Morrison’s appointments, Mr Albanese reflected on his predecessor’s disrespect for the Parliament and lack of self-awareness.
Between the budget and the ALP national conference in August Mr Albanese may have less time for looking back but more for forward policy.
