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Morrison’s ‘longest night’: Inside the making of AUKUS

Morrison’s ‘longest night’: Inside the making of AUKUS

The military agreement is a mess and risks leaving Australia with no submarine capability at all by the late 2030s. The cloak of secrecy that secured the deal could now be its undoing.

James CurranInternational editor
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Scott Morrison remembers it as “the longest night of my prime ministership”. It was September 14, 2021, the night before the official announcement of the AUKUS defence agreement.

Before going to bed, he sent French President Emmanuel Macron a text advising Australia “was out of it”: it would cancel the deal for France to provide 12 conventional submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, signed in December 2016 when Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.

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James Curran
James CurranInternational editorJames Curran is The Australian Financial Review’s International Editor and professor of modern history at Sydney University.

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Original URL: https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/morrison-s-longest-night-inside-the-making-of-aukus-20240630-p5jpuo