Former Department of Defence secretary Dennis Richardson said ‘a bipartisan approach was needed to ensure the success of the AUKUS project’

The former Department of Defence secretary has said there is “no real consensus” on defence strategy among the major political parties as Australia progresses the AUKUS agreement.

There is “no real consensus” on defence strategy among the major political parties as Australia progresses the AUKUS agreement, a leading defence expert has warned.

Former Department of Defence secretary Dennis Richardson said a bipartisan approach was needed to ensure the success of the project.

Picture: Martin Ollman

“I think part of the problem … is that there is no real consensus on that across the body politic and the two parties,” he said.

“They pretend there is but there isn’t a real consensus.”

Mr Richardson, also a former head of ASIO, told News Corp’s Defending Australia dinner there was “already a whispering campaign against nuclear-powered submarines”.

“It will be too hard, it’s too complex, something will happen with Trump, the Brits can’t be trusted,” he said.

“We’re sophisticated. Or course we can do it - it’s simply a question of political will and determination and perseverance.”

But, he said it would also require the commitment of the body politic across the two major parties.

Panelists - Jennifer Parker, Paul dib, Peter Dean and Dennis Richardson during the Defending Australia dinner at The Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman

At the event, Defence Minister Richard Marles said what Labor inherited with AUKUS was “an idea”.

“We have turned it into a plan,” he said.

“The optimal pathway by which we acquire a nuclear-powered submarine capability will see an Australian flag nuclear-powered submarine in the water a full decade ahead of what was planned when we came to government.”

Mr Marles announced the design partners for the building of the submarine construction yard.

“KBR and a joint venture of Aurecon and AECOM, which alone in that project, will see 4000 people employed,” he said.

He said Australia was seeing the largest build-

Defence Minister Richard Marles. Picture: Martin Ollman

up of arms in the Indo-Pacific in decades, driven by the single biggest conventional military build-up that we have witnessed since the Second World War.

“We are living at a moment in time where we face the most complex, the most threatening strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War,” he said.