ABC’s attack on Morrison over submarines is torpedoed by facts

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was fully entitled to ensure that the facts were laid out when he was grossly insulted by the disappointed French leader, writes Piers Akerman.

French President Emmanuel Macron and his Australian supporters Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and the ALP’s Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong are contemptible.

The duty of every government is to protect its citizens and the French submarine deal Macron and company are seeking to defend was rotten from its conception, as this column has detailed over the past five years.

It was beyond stupid to enter a contract with the French group DCNS (now Naval) which required the complete redesigning of a nuclear submarine, scrapping its nuclear power in favour of already obsolescent diesel engines which furthermore would be built in South Australia when there were offers of off-the-shelf submarines from Germany, Japan and the US that were more than capable of meeting Australia’s requirements.

The fault doesn’t lie with the politicians alone though. A great deal of the blame must fall upon the flawed thinking of the Australian defence establishment that has shown time and again it is not equipped to enter negotiations over equipment, be it submarines, ships or aircraft.

French President Emmanuel Macron reviews troops during a military ceremony in Paris. Picture: AFP

“Our” ABC has devoted as much air time over the past week to Macron’s defamatory claim that he was lied to by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as it has to the failed Glasgow COP26 leaders summit.

Those doomsday clocks will just have to keep ticking now that the claimed critical 1.5C temperature reduction by 2050 can’t possibly be met — not that this hopey-wishy goal was ever realistic.

That won’t deter the global warming activists from conducting more stunts in the hope of gaining even greater subsidies for their financiers, the investors in green industries like unreliable wind and solar technologies and unproven
green hydrogen.

Macron’s foot-stamping tantrum captivated the Left but in reality was just an explosion of irrelevant hot air matching that expelled at the chilly Scottish summit.

Former foreign minister Julie Bishop was quick off the mark to denounce the cancellation of the contract with the Naval group as “deeply regrettable” as she claimed the government had “reneged” on the $90 billion submarine deal.

Given the deal signed by Turnbull in 2016 had blown out from $50 billion to $90 billion and that the French had failed to meet three key terms and conditions of the contract: the concept studies, the systems requirements review; and the preliminary design review, it would seem that she learnt nothing about contractual obligations or budgets when she was shadow treasurer. As for Turnbull, his claim that he has always known Morrison to be a liar has not been supported by a single person, not even Christopher Pyne, who stood to gain the most through creating submarine jobs in Adelaide. “In my experience,” Pyne told The Australian, “Scott Morrison has never lied to me.”

Asked if Morrison had a reputation within government of being a liar, he stated: “Not in my experience.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives back in Sydney after attending the UN Climate Change Summit GOP26 in Glasgow. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMO

The petulance displayed by French ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault at the National Press Club last week was akin to the pathetic displays we’ve seen from bullying Chinese diplomats, not that the ABC, which reported his humbug with breathless appreciation, would make that comparison.

Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong told the national broadcaster that Morrison’s disrespect for an ally matched that of former US President Donald Trump.

She didn’t mention and neither did her supportive ABC host that the most egregious failure in Western diplomacy in recent times was the abject failure of President Joe Biden to let US allies know that he was pulling the Americans out of Afghanistan with zero notice, ensuring chaos and death.

Nor did she mention that Biden admitted that “we”, the AUKUS partners, Australia, the UK and the US, had been clumsy in the way they broke the news to the French.

In siding with the French, Labor leader Anthony Albanese has shown he is prepared to put the pettiest party politics ahead of the national interest and is unfit to lead the nation.

As for hapless Malcolm Turnbull, he would probably like to be expelled from the Liberal Party but the party would be reluctant to add to his delusion that he has been martyred.

Morrison was fully entitled to ensure that the facts were laid out when he was grossly insulted by the disappointed French leader.