AUKUS deal sinks to new lows, delivering sub par moments at home and abroad

In the short history of the AUKUS pact, it’s been yet another rocky few days. Overnight French President Emmanuel Macron made it clear he is still very angry about Australia’s abrupt decision to cancel its submarine contract with Naval Group. And US President Joe Biden threw Australia under the bus.

All this comes days after Senate estimates hearings exposed just how ill-conceived and poorly executed the AUKUS pivot was at both a diplomatic and strategic level.

What we learnt at estimates

While attention was on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s climate “plan”, Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong was picking through the bones of the AUKUS deal in the Senate.

On Wednesday, Defence estimates revealed Australia’s first nuclear submarine wouldn’t be in the water until 2039. 

“We are confident we’ll have a boat in the water by the end of the next decade,” Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead, chief of the nuclear powered submarine taskforce said. “A boat … meaning one boat?” Wong asked. 

And just to be clear: in the water and operational mean different things. The boat would have to go through a commissioning process which can take years before it can be used.

Mead also quietly confirmed Australia wasn’t looking to lease British or American submarines in the meantime, even though in September Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham both said that was something we’d do.

That means for about 20 years, Australia will rely on its geriatric Collins-class submarines which date back to the 1990s.

Responding to Wong’s questions about a capability and security gap lasting years, Defence officials suggested life-of-type extensions to the Collins-class submarines would help paper over the cracks.

On Thursday, when it was the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s turn to front up, we learnt more about the decision to cancel the French contract. We already knew Morrison left it until the eleventh hour to tell Macron he’d be pulling out of the deal. Under questioning, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne revealed Australia had been similarly late to inform key neighbours about a pivot which could have profound future security implications for the region.

Payne spoke to her Indonesian counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi, just eight hours before the announcement, after the first leaks to the media had hinted at a major national security-related story about to break.

Wong pointed out that Payne and Dutton had met their French counterparts two weeks before the AUKUS announcement. Payne confirmed neither she nor Dutton had raised the possibility the Naval Group deal might be scrapped, and said the government hadn’t yet decided on nuclear submarines. Payne and DFAT officials provided little clarity about American media reports suggesting we’d told the Biden administration months earlier about the decision.

Later, DFAT confirmed negotiations on a free trade agreement with the European Union, already delayed amid the falling out with the French, would be pushed back further until February.

Morrison gets cucked

Morrison flew to the G20 summit in Rome last week with all that behind him. Biden, meanwhile, has gone to great lengths to show things are rosy between the Americans and the French. The two leaders sat down for a meeting in which Biden said publicly that the way France was blindsided had been “clumsy”.

But he also pointed out Australia’s oversized role in that clumsiness, confirming that his administration was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not coming through.

There’s been no such public display of affection between Morrison and Macron. In Rome Morrison tried to break the ice by accosting Macron, in a moment awkwardly captured by Morrison’s personal photographer.

“He was having a chat with someone. I went up and just put my arm on his shoulder, I said, ‘G’day Emmanuel’ … He was happy to exchange those greetings,” Morrison said.

Macron is not happy. Overnight he told reporters Morrison had lied to him over cancelling the submarine deal.

“I don’t think. I know,” he said when asked if he thought Morrison lied.

Minutes later, a typically defensive Morrison addressed the media: “I don’t agree with that.”

He then accused journalists of getting selfies with Macron. Things are going well.