SA’s fight to secure AUKUS deal is just getting started | David Penberthy

The Premier is in a race against the clock to put Adelaide’s central role in the AUKUS deal beyond doubt, writes David Penberthy.

In the month since AUKUS was announced two streams of thought have emerged which threaten the long-term likelihood of the submarines ever being built in South Australia.

One comes from the Left of politics and has found its most spectacular expression courtesy of former prime minister Paul Keating. In his machinegun attack on the agreement, Keating labelled AUKUS an exercise in paranoia and forelock-tugging by an Australia not confident of its place in Asia.

The second comes from the Right and finds voice with economic conservatives who question the fiscal wisdom of the subs deal, ask whether the eye-watering $368bn is a fixed price or a stab in the dark, and whether it would make sense just to buy the things elsewhere rather than building them from a standing start in a country (and city) that right now does not have the skill base or labour force.

All of this should create a sense of unease, if not alarm, in SA. The coalescing of these two ideas writes a script whereby a future federal government can declare that it’s all too hard and too expensive to go through with the deal in its current form.

We have seen the Greens oppose the deal outright and several left wing Labor MPs stray from the Albanese narrative to question the deal.

On the other side of the divide, we have seen a lengthy queue of commentators at newspapers such as The Australian and The Australian Financial Review questioning whether the domestic capacity part of the AUKUS deal is an example of a well meaning but flimsy industry policy that’s been inserted into a defence agreement as a make-work scheme.

Former foreign minister and South Australian political giant Alexander Downer. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

The most unnerving, but accurate, analysis of the doubts around the deal was written for this newspaper by Alexander Downer. With an almost apologetic tone, the former foreign minister said that, as much as he loved his home state and wanted it to succeed, he struggled to believe that the deal would ever be honoured, so prohibitive were the costs at a time when governments have already blown so much of their revenue.

Simmering away in the background of all this is the tedious and tendentious assertion that somehow our state is on the receiving end of a charity arrangement that it doesn’t deserve. There remains a widely held view among eastern-states conservatives that SA is an economic backwater and that past defence contracts have been expensive, marred by delays and let down by unionised labour.

It was this sentiment which informed former defence minister David Johnston’s outburst in the Senate about ASC – “I wouldn’t trust them to build a canoe” – a statement which would help cost him his job in the Abbott government.

Against this backdrop, and whether he likes it or not, there is one person who has what is arguably the most important role in Australia in terms of keeping the AUKUS deal on track in the manner it was announced. And that person is Premier Peter Malinauskas.

The breakneck speed at which Malinauskas has responded to the announcement has been hugely important. His immediate visit to the UK and his substantial discussions with Flinders University about the creation of new courses creating a subs-ready jobs pool have been signals of one key thing. Tactically, SA needs to get to the point where so much work has already been done on the subs that it makes no economic sense not to keep doing it.

The AUKUS deal has understandably been a bigger story in SA than anywhere else in the country, because so many jobs are riding on it.

As an indicative point, when the deal was announced it didn’t even make the front-page splash in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, whereas here at The Advertiser it was rightly lauded for days as a jobs bonanza.

The political response to the deal from other premiers (in states which missed out on new work) was much more muted than the elation we saw from Malinauskas. Indeed Dan Andrews’ left-wing credentials mean he is probably a closet critic of the arrangement on Keating-style grounds, especially given the Victorian Premier is happily knocking around with senior members of Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party as we speak.

All Andrews has said of note about the deal was that at no point would he even consider having a nuclear waste dump in Victoria, facetiously saying it should come to SA given that’s “where all the jobs are going”.

Premier Peter Malinauskas at the new Pacific Marine Batteries factory at Osborne. Picture: Ben Clark

Mark McGowan in Western Australia has made similar comments, saying his state has no interest in taking the waste as required under the AUKUS terms and that Woomera is the logical spot to put it.

To that end, the decision of Malinauskas to invite discussion from the scientific experts about where a dump should go – and to leave SA very much on the table as the likely location – is another example of how determined he is to see this deal honoured in its current form.

As stated a few weeks ago, Malinauskas pulled the right rein in that landmark speech at The Advertiser’s Building a Bigger, Better SA function in saying that our state should get the subs contract, not because we need it, but because we are ambitious and capable enough to deliver it.

It was a great statement aimed at drawing a line under the can rattling of the past, where SA would plead for work on the basis of necessity rather than capacity. He needs to ensure that this capacity is built in record time.

But the tenor of the debate in the past month has proved one thing. Getting the AUKUS deal over the line, with all it means for SA, was not of itself a victory, but merely the beginning of a battle we will have to fight for the months and years to come to make sure it actually happens.