Kevin Rudd urgently calls on the US to put AUKUS deal into action

Former PM Kevin Rudd has warned the US to urgently share its defence technologies as part of an agreement, especially as the world deals with the Israel war.

Kevin Rudd has turned up the heat on the US to put AUKUS into action, declaring the world faces challenges “beyond our imagining” and Australia does not have “any time to wait”.

In a blunt intervention, delivered while the US Congress is paralysed by Republican infighting, the US ambassador took aim at “really crazy” American rules preventing the sharing of defence technology and impeding the creation of a seamless industrial base.

The former prime minister called for urgent action given the world had faced “few harder times in recent decades” between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’s terrorist attacks in Israel and China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

“We don’t have the odd angry shot every four or five years that we need to attend to. We have multiple challenges simultaneously,” Dr Rudd said.

Kevin Rudd has turned up the heat on the US to put AUKUS into action.

“We don’t have any time to wait. The times are urgent. The crises multiply each day in breadth and in depth and in complexity.”

“There was a time in our relationships that we could seminar these things to death. The time for seminaring is over – the time for action is now.”

“The challenges which lie ahead are beyond our imagining.”

Congress has been working on legislation to approve the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia – although this is opposed by some Republicans worried about delays in producing new US boats – and exempt Australia from export control regulations.

But the House of Representatives is currently paralysed after Republicans ousted their leader in an unprecedented coup and are now refusing to agree on a replacement.

Dr Rudd said the red tape exemption would be a “monumental step forward in realising this mission of a seamless industry”, pointing to the “most ridiculous” examples of how the rules had harmed Australia’s use of American military technology.

In one case, he said it took six years for the US to deliver a missile system Australia had ordered, while other Australian-owned equipment had to be repaired by American citizens or sent back to the US for maintenance.

“That’s where it gets really crazy – I left out the adjective,” Dr Rudd told the G’Day USA defence industry dialogue.

AUKUS submarine deal.

“Waiting for weeks, months or even years for spare parts or stocks to be replenished is no longer viable … One of the many military lessons from Ukraine is that defence materiel depletes quickly in a conflict.”

Dr Rudd also warned US bureaucrats not to engage in “regulatory clawback” if the legislation was eventually approved by Congress.

“Guess what? We’re all alert to that – we don’t intend to allow it to happen,” he said.

White House National Security Council defence policy director Jason Israel said resolving issues with America’s export control rules was on the agenda for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s meetings in Washington DC with President Joe Biden later this month.

Former US Navy secretary Richard Spencer said US arms trafficking laws were also preventing Australian companies from sharing “eye-watering” technologies with the US.

“That is insane and we have to fix that,” he told the conference.