Dissent within Labor over the AUKUS pact has begun to surface, with MPs voicing concerns about issues of cost, sovereignty and the adoption of nuclear technology, and the party’s rank-and-file continuing to stir.

Less than a week after former prime minister Paul Keating stirred the party’s base with a firebrand condemnation of all aspects of the trilateral security pact, some MPs and elements of the party’s base started to break ranks.