Morrison’s subs stunt needs another stunt to salvage it

AUKUS and the ditching of a well-advanced contract to build submarines we were told were fit for Australia’s defence needs into the second half of the century was always a stunt by Scott Morrison. Now that the stunt has left him with a serious policy and political problem, he’s resorted to another stunt to rescue it.

A pre-election announcement of the sub design and build, which was supposed to not be known until an exhaustive study was finished in 2023? This is strategic, defence and industry policy on the run, driven by the consequences of Morrison’s obsession with the next media conference.

And the cost? The first vague estimate of the nuclear subs was $116 billion. Given that the French subs ballooned, in just five years, from $50 billion to $90 billion, that likely means $150 billion for nuclear subs by the time they’re in the water. And the first delivered by 2038, according to Peter Dutton now — a timeline mocked even by the Coalition’s supporters.

Then there’s the second pre-election announcement about an east coast nuclear submarine base, to cost at least $10 billion, with previous preferred locations (identified in Department of Defence studies unearthed by Senator Rex Patrick) such as Sydney Harbour and Jervis Bay ditched in favour of Port Kembla, Newcastle or Brisbane. As the Navy has long known, an east coast sub base is crucial because it simply cannot retain either submariners or base staff if they have to live in Perth. But yet again the process has been driven by the need for announcements, not robust policy.

Never in Australian history has there been a more expensive policy simply made up as a bunch of poll-watching politicians went along — it makes the JobKeeper waste look like loose change.

The AUKUS announcement never made any strategic sense — we were ditching a plan to have new submarines in the water in the 2030s for a vague notion of having nuclear submarines in the water in the 2050s, if we were lucky, all for the sake of a big announcement for a prime minister looking to reset his COVID-laden leadership. Instead it simply created the prospect of a yawning gap in our defence capability at the same time Morrison was insisting the threat environment had dramatically worsened.

Six months on, it’s got much worse still. Peter Dutton’s claim that the whole 18-month study would be curtailed in time for a pre-election announcement — and that somehow the first boats would arrive by the late 2030s — is a clear admission that the AUKUS announcement was a shambles all along, and looking more shambolic by the day as the international environment worsened.

Seriously, what kind of government engages in these sorts of reversals, changes of mind and policy on the hop about the most important defence materiel decision we’re ever likely to make? And what kind of media reports this stuff with a straight face, as if it’s all emerged from some rigorous analytical process rather than a pre-election brainstorming session in the prime minister’s office?

As for the electoral implications of a nuclear submarine base, both Port Kembla and Newcastle are Labor electorates, so there’s no fear of blowback from voters who dislike the idea of seeing truckloads of iodine pills being handed out to child care centres, nursing homes and hospitals, as the UK government has been doing for the past few years and which the Norwegian government does for visiting nuclear submarines.

But for the moment, these are just announcements. And, very likely, there’ll be many more announcements. The government insists the Chinese regime wants Labor to win the election. Given how poorly Morrison has handled Australia’s major defence decisions, why on earth would our enemies would want us to change government?