(Image: Private Media)

This is the part two of an investigative series. Find part one here.

If Australia’s UK and US allies knew then what we all know now they would never have had a moment’s doubt that Scott Morrison could keep a secret. And secrecy, after all, has been the essential — and much admired — feature of AUKUS so far.

From the former prime minister’s apparent moment of clarity in late 2019, the AUKUS project was known to a mere handful of officials. In the UK, too, only about 10 people, including then prime minister Boris Johnson, were in on the plan which went by the  codename Operation Hookless. Assuming a similar story in the US, it adds up to about 30 people.

In Australia and the UK, those driving AUKUS have been almost entirely conservative politicians working with hand-picked security advisers and senior Defence officials. 

In the case of Australia, the leaders of Defence and National Security had worked with a conservative government for close to a decade before AUKUS rolled around. Chief of Defence Angus Campbell had been Morrison’s right-hand man on Operation Sovereign Borders, which threw a cloak of secrecy over Australia’s border security.  Morrison’s key security adviser, Andrew Shearer, came to the table after years of service to Liberal leaders and a stint with the IPA.

Defence secretary Greg Moriarty is a near 40-year veteran of Defence. He worked with the US Command during the Gulf War, was appointed to Australia’s top anti-terrorism role under Tony Abbott, and was appointed to the top job in Defence in 2017 by the Turnbull government.

Morrison’s inner circle of almost exclusively older conservative blokes who’ve known each other for years has the look of a closed shop. An organisational expert might immediately see the potential for groupthink. 

Whether good, bad or indifferent, the decisions Morrison’s group came to have remained largely secret and thus still largely unchallengeable — notwithstanding that they lock Australia into a hugely expensive and long-range course of action which might not ultimately deliver on the promise of a nuclear-powered submarine. (Close observers will note that the language to describe AUKUS focuses more and more on “technology cooperation” rather than nuclear-powered subs.) 

For decision-makers’ eyes only

Faced with legitimate questions, then foreign affairs minister Senator Marise Payne effectively told critics that AUKUS was none of their business. In an interview with 6PR’s Liam Bartlett in the weeks after AUKUS was unveiled, she said:

Nobody who is not part of those discussions and is not part of the decision-making process can ever know — nor frankly should they — know the detail and the depth of the considerations that governments go into.

Payne might be right. However, her position betrays a fundamental problem with AUKUS. We were being asked to trust a government which was led by a prime minister who has proved to be utterly untrustworthy. Why wouldn’t Australians suspect the worst?

Payne’s words also invite us to recall the last time Australia teamed up with the US and the UK in a military adventure. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was carried out in the name of democracy and freedom, but the action was underpinned by highly questionable — if not outright false — intelligence.

Nor is the Defence Department able to claim honest broker status when it comes to acquisitions. The Australian National Audit office has consistently found cost and time blowouts.  

Former South Australian senator Rex Patrick — who served with the Royal Australian Navy for 11 years, including on submarines — has pointed to Defence’s ability to pull the wool over the eyes of government MPs.

“The problem here in Australia is we have [Defence Force heads] making recommendations to cabinet ministers who have no project management experience,” he said. “They don’t understand project risk. So we end up with something like a bespoke design being presented to a cabinet by people who wear flashy uniforms, lots of gold on their epaulets and off they take us down a pathway which is hugely risky, hugely costly and generally ends in tears.”

Patrick said the 2008 Mortimer review of Defence procurement had recommended the government commission only “unique capability” designs in special cases. This, though, had been ignored, for example in the case of Australia’s Hunter-class future frigate project, with resulting design complications.

Political edge, political wedge

In Patrick’s view, the AUKUS announcement was a “political announcement” in response to the performance of France’s Naval Group.

“Just about every Coalition senator that I talked to would raise the submarine topic with me and all of them were really concerned about the cost of the Attack-class submarines and the delays that were apparent, and also the lack of Australian industry involvement,” he said.

“And [Morrison] did what a clever politician would do and that is to kick the problem until after the election.”

AUKUS has since continued as a political wedge for the Coalition. In June, after barely a month in opposition, former defence minister Peter Dutton publicly warned that the Albanese government must not walk away from the Coalition’s AUKUS deal.

The new opposition leader said he believed he could have wrangled two Virginia-class nuclear submarines “off the shelf” from the US Navy before the end of this decade, thus giving Australia time to prepare its own shipyards and workforce to build subs in Australia. (Duttton proposed that the two could be added to the eight nuclear-powered submarines Australia is already looking to purchase under AUKUS.)

Dutton’s assertion of a quick “off-the-shelf” deal has been comprehensively shot down by the US Navy. The US Congress was advised in August of severe strain on submarine production lines keeping up with US demand into the early 2030s — hardly the sort of development to emerge out of the blue. 

In the meantime, the Morrison solution has left a looming gap in Australia’s submarine capability which cannot necessarily be filled by extending the life of the decades-old Collins-class subs. It means that more money will need to be spent on other submarine solutions — possibly conventionally powered subs.

Just add more money and maybe the problem will go away.

Next: The UK ready to fill the breach. Of course.

If you have any information about this story you would like to pass on please contact David Hardaker via dhardaker@protonmail.com.

Are you concerned about Scott Morrison’s AUKUS deal? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.