Paul Keating says subs deal is ‘worst in all history’, but is he right? | Samantha Maiden

The former Labor PM has ripped into the AUKUS submarine deal, savaging individual ministers in the process. Is he right? It all depends, says Samantha Maiden.

Paul Keating deployed a ballistic missile on the Albanese government’s AUKUS submarine deal this week. It will come as no surprise that it featured the rhetorical flourish that characterised his political career for good and ill.

As friendly fire goes, it’s probably most sustained attack on the government’s foreign policy credentials since the election, landing a far more powerful punch than anything Peter Dutton or Simon Birmingham have said or done.

“It represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader Billy Hughes sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War I,’’ Keating began. “In an arrangement concocted on the English coast at Cornwall by Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson – one of the great vulgarians of our time – and Joe Biden, Australia is locking in its next half century in Asia as subordinate to the United States, an Atlantic power.”

Amid all the Instagram frivolity of Anthony Albanese donning Joe Biden’s Ray-Ban sunglasses, the question the former prime minister posed was this: Is Australia seeing the deal if not through rose-coloured glasses through the frame of (Chinese-produced) aviators?

It wasn’t just about taking a swing at Albanese for climbing into bed with the Brits and the Americans, although there was plenty of that.

In practical terms, Paul Keating argues the large, heavy, nuclear submarines are inappropriate to defend Australia.

Hitting out at the about $360bn cost to build Australia’s fleet of nuclear-powered submarines by 2055, he said it was simply a bad deal.

“For $360bn, we’re going to get eight submarines. It must be the worst deal in all history,” he said.

“With the Collins model, you had, and if the numbers are right, 45 or 50 conventional submarines around the coast of Australia saying, ‘put a step over here and we’ll punch your lights out’.

“That’s the better defence policy for Australia than joining with the Americans up there in the shallow waters of the Chinese coast.”

So is he right?

The first point to make is that the natural enthusiasm some Labor voters have for Keating’s signature sprays should always be moderated by the reality that his well-established antipathy to the Brits and the Americans is longstanding.

It’s colourful and writes its own headlines, but it is not informed by any current national security briefings on the risk China poses in the region.

It’s an issue reflected in the questions Keating took from journalists at the National Press Club.

“You haven’t received a briefing on the issue since the mid-1990s. Could you be out of touch on this issue?” he was asked.

His response was an acerbic affair.

“Because I’ve got a brain. And I can think. And I can read. And I read every day,” Keating replied.

“What would be the point of China wanting to occupy Sydney and Melbourne? Militarily? And could they ever do it?

“You don’t need a briefing from the dopey security agencies that we have in Canberra to tell you that. I mean, I know you’re trying to ask a question, but the question is so dumb, it’s hardly worth an answer.”

With fewer theatrics, this is a question respected voices in the space including Australian National University Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies Hugh White, AO, has made in the past.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating addresses the National Press Club from Sydney in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“Are nuclear-powered submarines better – more cost-effective – for Australia’s operational needs than conventionally powered ones?’’ White says. “This is one of the many questions that deserve a bit more attention than they have received since Scott Morrison’s AUKUS coup. Let’s agree that the French project was an irredeemable dud, which had to be abandoned.

“But are nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs in clunky but convenient navy-speak) the right way to go, or should Australia be looking for a new and better way to buy a new fleet of conventionally-powered boats (SSKs)?

“The answer is not simple, but it is far from clear that SSNs are a better bet operationally than SSKs for Australia in the decades ahead.”

White argues the answer depends on “what Australia is buying subs to do”.

“If their primary role is to support America in a war with China then SSNs are probably the way to go, because they are unbeatable in the main task that America would want Australian subs to help perform, which would be to help find and kill China’s subs near their home bases.

“But if the main role of the new boats is to defend Australia and its near neighbours independently, then it is not so clear.”

It remains unfashionable to take a swing at Foreign Minister Penny Wong who is something of a political untouchable.

But swing away Keating did.

“Let me just make this point: Running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy. It’s a consular task,” he said.

That’s a rather patronising view of our Pacific neighbours.

Nonetheless, he argues that by participating in the “kabuki show in San Diego”, the Prime Minister has made a dangerous error.

He described, not just Wong, but Richard Marles as “unwise”. And also Andrew Shearer, the former adviser to Tony Abbott who currently leads the Office of National Intelligence as the director-general since December 2020. To his supporters, Keating’s characteristic verbal attacks are a Mahler symphony of political violence and nostalgia.

To his critics, he remains a dangerous voice, his hatred of the British marinating in some good old-fashioned tribalism about what the British Empire did to his Irish antecedents.

“History will be the judge of this project in the end,’’ Keating said.

“But I want my name clearly recorded among those who say it is a mistake. Who believe that, despite its enormous cost, it does not offer a solution to the challenge of great power competition in the region or to the security of the Australian people and its continent.”