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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

As Anthony Albanese and Joe Biden toasted each other last week, one of the most significant deals in Australian history hung in the background.

The AUKUS submarine deal isn’t just one of the biggest spends our government has ever made, it also promises to transform Australia’s military relationship with America.

Today, spokesperson on Defence for the Australian Greens, Senator David Shoebridge, on whether Australia’s $368 billion dollar submarine deal will be worth it.

It’s Wednesday, November 1.

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ANGE:

Senator Shoebridge, you were recently in the United States. Why did you go and what exactly were you trying to find out?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, one of the principal reasons I went was as part of a broader parliamentary delegation in relation to Julian Assange, and that occupied the first two days of our visit and fully occupied it. But I then had the benefit of a third day in Washington, and I devoted the bulk of that to talking with some critical stakeholders, some some experts on the issue of AUKUS and particularly the AUKUS submarine proposal. And and of course, it was quite enlightening to see the view from Washington, which I think the politest description of it would be sceptical.

ANGE:

Right. Can you tell me a bit more about the view from Washington and why there is scepticism around the AUKUS sub deal?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, interestingly, they the people I met with weren't, you know, from the left of politics. In fact, some of them were kind of associated with right wing think tanks, often have a very robust view, a much more robust view than I have, about the benefits of military expenditure. And some of them were experts who have been analysing this issue for decades, and particularly US nuclear submarine program. And the meetings I had with the Chatham House rules so I won't name who they were, but they were people who you'd want to go to to get that kind of perspective. And they pointed out a couple of, I think, pretty brutal facts about it. First of all, just at the time Australia wants to acquire these nuclear submarines in the early 2030s, is a time when there's going to be a valley or a trough in the number of the same submarines available for the United States Navy. And there's no way to fix that, because that trough is created by decisions that were made in the mid and late 1990s. And in addition to that, the US Navy's current plans to expand its nuclear submarine program have hit major supply side constraints.

Audio excerpt – Bill Hagerty:

“And ladies and gentlemen, that's a problem. Today, the Navy has 49 attack submarines. That's roughly 25% short of its goal of 66 submarines. The pace of making, as I've read, maybe 1.2 submarines a year. By giving these submarines to Australia, they'll put us 3 to 4 years behind in our production process.”

SHOEBRIDGE:

In order to meet their current plan, ignoring AUKUS, the additional submarines for AUKUS, they need to be pumping out about two nuclear submarines a year. They've been running at somewhere between 1.3 and 1.5 for the last few years, and they're miles behind on their production targets and they don't seem to have a solution for dealing with their supply constraints. You can't just throw money at this in the United States economy. They don't have the skilled workers, they don't have the dockyards, they don't have the infrastructure. And finally, what they said was, if we give you, from the US perspective, if we give you Australia a nuclear submarines and we don't have enough and there's a conflict with China, is there going to be a guarantee that those submarines will be available for a conflict with China? Because absent that guarantee, from a US perspective, it's a significant reduction in their capacity. Now from a Greens perspective, I have a lot of problems with that thinking. But you can see how from a brutal, self-interested perspective from the United States, how providing three or five nuclear submarines to Australia in the early 2030s makes zero sense, and is going to have huge resistance in Congress.

ANGE:

I guess the government would say that this is about building up Australia's defence capabilities though, right? And other countries like China have some of these submarines, these nuclear subs. So, why wouldn't we want to match that kind of defence capability?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Even if you thought this was a good idea and, I stress, I think it's a disastrously bad idea with no, you know, no concrete underpinning to it. It's likely to unravel horribly. But even if you thought this was a good idea, from an industrial base and a population and an economy the size of Australia, a $368 billion dollar commitment to nuclear submarines means it's next to impossible to fund any other significant defence acquisition. It it'll be literally stripping every other part of the Australian Defence Force. And one of the big proponents, one of the big, you know, supporters of AUKUS, a now retired Australian admiral called Briggs, has recently produced a report which says with eight nuclear submarines, half of them a Virginia class submarine, half of them this AUKUS Australia British joint project. It'll be very expensive to maintain the two supply chains, very hard to keep them in the water. And at best we're going to have two, at any one time, two submarines on patrol where you want to have them in the water. Are we really saying that spending $368 billion dollars to put two boats in the water in the South China Sea at any one time, is a sensible use of Australia's collective wealth? I mean, it's it's an incredibly perverse, from a purely defence perspective, an incredibly perverse use of resources, because again, as Admiral Briggs points out, you get two boats in the water at any one time. They're basically one shot wonders. Because once you fire a missile or a torpedo from them, your opponents know exactly where they are. They lose their stealth capacity. And the primary strike capacity of a Virginia class submarine is a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, which each carry a fairly modest payload. You know, I think it's a thousand pound bomb. So we're spending $368 billion dollars to put 24 thousand pound bombs into what will be a, you know, if we followed down the US path, a terrible regional conflagration. From a defence perspective, it is it is almost one of the most bizarre misallocation of resources you could imagine.

ANGE:

So if $368 billion dollars is excessive spending, in your view, for this project, what amount of spending would be sensible for defence? Because, you know, it's quite clear that a lot of our military capability isn't up to scratch at the moment. You know, the Taipan helicopters falling out of the sky basically, the existing submarine fleet that we have is outdated. What would sensible spending look like?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, something in the order of 1.5% of GDP would be a kind of historical average for Australia. The Labour government is committed to pushing it beyond 2% of GDP, which is a significant increase. And the Coalition is of the same view. In fact is there's almost nothing between Labor and the Coalition when it comes to increased defence expenditure.

1.5% of GDP would be more than sufficient to come up with a very credible defence strategy focussed on defending Australia, not threatening our neighbours. I know that doesn't excite the ADF. It definitely doesn't excite the defence establishment. But that would mean conventional submarines, rather than nuclear submarines. It would mean a significant reduction in some of the aggressive strike expenditure that we've seen. And it would contribute to regional stability because if we take away our destabilising projection of force into the region, that, I think, will be part of a regional cooling off of what is otherwise a pretty aggressive arms race.

ANGE:

After the break, what are we really getting out of our relationship with the US?

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Audio excerpt – Joe Biden:

“So please join me, if I can get a... here you go. Please join me in a toast. To our partnership, our mateship, and the future that we'll create together. Cheers. Mr Prime Minister, the floor is yours.”

ANGE:

Senator Shoebridge, you wrote this weekend that countries have interests, not friends, and you warn that America will ultimately protect its own interests, no matter what kind of deal they've signed. The friendship between Biden and Albanese looks pretty strong at the moment, though. What concerns do you have about America honouring their part of this bargain?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, the problem with watching President Biden and Prime Minister Albanese come together and pretend they're best mates is, from an Australian perspective, we turn up and shake hands and say, “Hey, we're best mates, you know, you've got to love Australia. Aren't we really important, don't forget about us.”

And for the United States, their attention just moves on the next day. They have their global interests that they're interested in. They see, I think, they largely see Australia as a as a useful sort of vassal state, sort of a sub imperial power in the region. They are looking to Australia to be a useful place to base their B52 bombers and they're expanding that capacity in, you know, up at Tindal in the north. They're looking at Australia as a base to put their nuclear submarines out at Stirling just off Perth. They're looking at Australia as a base to put in Marines, because they realise a number of their existing forward bases, in Okinawa and in the Central Pacific, are at significant risk of from from China's military. And they see Australia as the next, the next line of defence, and they're pre-positioning and aiming to pre-position a whole lot of defence assets in Australia. They don't really see us as a friend. They don't see us as a mate. They see us as a kind of useful bunch of patsies, and a useful place to put a bunch of US military assets. And I think we should be honest about that. And, you know, on this AUKUS deal... if the US Congress in the early 2030s has the US Navy saying they don't have enough nuclear submarines for their own capacity, but would you mind giving five to Australia? What do you think a US Congress will say, what will the US Navy say? They will say, well, bugger Australia, we want to keep them for ourselves. And so unless Australia gives an a basically hands over the sovereignty of those submarines to the United States, and gives an unambiguous commitment that they will just seamlessly fit into the US Navy, which would be a shameful surrender of our sovereignty, there is no way at all we'll get the submarines. We have a choice, basically. You know, surrender our sovereignty and maybe get AUKUS submarines all kind of be genuinely independent.

ANGE:

And Senator, you've had time at Senate Estimates to grill our defence and foreign policy departments about a lot of these challenges recently.

Audio excerpt – Speaker 1:

“I now welcome the Australian Submarine Agency. Welcome.”

ANGE:

Are you satisfied that they're really grappling with these things honestly and giving frank and fearless advice?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, I mean, the short answer to that would be no. We had the Australian Submarine Agency in estimates last week. And when I put to them the challenges about, all of these fundamental structural challenges, about getting access to any US nuclear submarines, I pointed out to them, are you really saying you have some sort of guaranteed commitment that that's going to happen in the early 2030s? Their answer was, oh, well, some of them have been to Congress and they've met some people there and they've been very nice to them and they have indicated that they are, you know, generally very supportive of AUKUS.

Audio excerpt – David Shoebridge:

“You won't even acknowledge the extraordinary political risk of that. It's like, this is like the worst possible $368 billion dollar gamble, isn't it?”

Audio excerpt – Alex Kelton:

“I mean, I can just reflect back to you, certainly the Prime Minister's comments. He is there in the United States. He has said himself of the strong support that we have from U.S. Congress, the strong bipartisan support. We've seen that ourselves. We've hosted many congressional delegations.”

SHOEBRIDGE:

And that's the commitment they have. You know, that's what we're spending, what, $50 billion on in the next in the next seven or eight years, and are committing a $368 billion dollar project on, because I've had a chat with a few people in Congress and they were nice to them. I just find that deeply disturbing. And when we put the the fundamental constraints of a nuclear submarine capacity, as identified by, you know, retired Admiral Briggs, you know, eight nuclear submarines, we get two of them on station in any one time, is that really a sensible expenditure? We just get these kind of glazed looks and assertion that they're committed to AUKUS. Who would spend $368 billion dollars to put two boats in the water? It beggars belief.

Audio excerpt – David Shoebridge:

“It's a very unusual thing. There's no contribution at all from the US Navy indicating they support the provision of nuclear submarines to Australia. Where has the US Navy made such a statement?”

Audio excerpt – Matt Buckley:

“Well, Senator, in all of my engagements, all Vice Admiral Mead's engagements, and the entire team we have had nothing but full support from the US Navy, from US naval reactors, in terms of this contribution. I mean, the President of the United States, in his statement, made it clear that this was a part of the plan.”

Audio excerpt – David Shoebridge

“Well, you see, the president of the United States is not the US Navy.”

Audio excerpt – Matt Buckley:

“They work for the President of the United States, Senator.”

Audio excerpt – David Shoebridge

“Yeah, I think we've seen how that works here, haven't we?”

ANGE:

The US will be a major player in our region though for a long time. So what should cooperation and a partnership with the US look like, if not something like AUKUS?

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, we can be friends and partners of the United States without becoming an extension of the US military. And to the extent that the United States is interested in, you know, open, open trade, the UN Law of the Sea, well then let's, by all means, join together.

But, you know, I think we should also point out some of the gross hypocrisy from the United States when it... when they say that they're in the South China Sea in order to promote the UN Law of... the UN Law on the Sea and some international rules based order. Because the United States has refused to join the... or say that it is bound by the international Law of the Sea, because the US wants to be able to, in its own home waters and around the world, send its military wherever the hell it likes, regardless of any kind of international legal restriction. And many people in the region see that as pretty gross hypocrisy. And I think being a friend to the United States means telling some of these hard truths. I think it means working with the United States where it assists, you know, peaceful cooperation between nations. But I don't think we should, it's not in our interests and it's not in the region's interests, to be joining with the United States to fuel a regional arms race.

And you know, the idea that there's some inevitable conflict between China and the United States and we have to pick a side and we have to arm for that inevitable conflict, that is incredibly dangerous for Australia. Because if that war happens, it will be devastating on a scale that it is hard to conceive.

ANGE:

Senator David Shoebridge, thanks so much for your time.

SHOEBRIDGE:

Well, that's my pleasure. Always happy to chat.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

Around 70 bushfires burned out of control in Queensland yesterday.

The fires have destroyed 85 structures, including 46 homes and two people have died.

And,

A reminder: from today, you can listen to a new podcast from us and Schwartz Media called Rupert: The Last Mogul.

The series investigates Rupert Murdoch's rise - how he builds power, how he uses it, and how he came to be called "the most dangerous man in the world".

Look for Rupert: The Last Mogul in it’s own feed today. Episodes will also be here on 7am, every Saturday.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back tomorrow.

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