Anthony Albanese brushes off criticism by former Labor PM Paul Keating

Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating has taken another swipe at the Albanese government’s support of the AUKUS nuclear subs deal.

Paul Keating has taken another swipe at the Albanese Labor government’s national security policies, saying it should be “celebrating the rise” of China instead of turning Australia into “a US protectorate”.

The former prime minister started his brutal assessment of Labor’s defence policy in an interview on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday, where he said the government’s embrace of the AUKUS nuclear submarines deal was “likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States”.

“This is a party which has adopted the defence and foreign policies of the Morrison Liberal government. This is a sellout,” Mr Keating said.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was unperturbed by the views of the 80-year-old Mr Keating, who was voted out of office 28 years ago.

“Paul was a great prime minister – that ended in 1996,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Perth on Friday.

“Paul has his views. They’re well known.

“The world has changed between 1996 and 2024. My government is doing what we need to do today, and everyone will get a go here.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Paul Keating is entitled to his views, but the world had changed since the Labor legend was PM. Picture: NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Mr Keating, who has been vocal in his criticism of the tripartite deal between Australia, the UK and US since it was announced in 2021 when Scott Morrison was prime minister, took another shot at Mr Albanese late on Friday.

Mr Keating said Mr Albanese had put Australia on a path to becoming a “US protectorate” in Asia when the nation should be “celebrating the rise of China”.

“The fact is, the Albanese government is returning to the Anglosphere to garner Australia’s security,” Mr Keating said in a statement.

“In effect, the Albanese government is doing the very thing that all my life, I had trenchantly opposed, and in the post-War years, Labor had opposed.

“And that is, finding our security from Asia rather than our security in Asia.”

Mr Keating said the Albanese government’s move to expand US military presence in Australia with more troop movements would leave the nation as a “continental extension of American power”.

“Such an outcome is likely to turn the Australian government, in defence and security

terms, into simply the national administrator of what would be broadly viewed in

Asia as a US protectorate,” he said.

Mr Keating said the government had opted to see Beijing as an “imminent threat”, rather than

“recognising and celebrating the rise of China … and dealing with it diplomatically”

Defence Minister Richard Marles, with Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, has again defended the AUKUS deal. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

In response to Mr Keating’s AUKUS comments, Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was entitled to his views, but said Australia was facing “the most complex strategic circumstances that we’ve had to deal with since the end of the Second World War.”

“Characterising our relationship with the United States in that way is not right, nor is it fair,” Mr Marles said from Canada.

Meanwhile, Mr Albanese and Mr Marles have defended the AUKUS deal after US President Joe Biden updated Congress.

Mr Biden sent a letter to the US Congress on Thursday, updating the deal that would allow for the transfer of nuclear material to Australia.

Mr Marles said this did not mean nuclear waste would end up in Australia.

“That is the agreement that we reached with the UK and the US back in March of last year and so all this is doing is providing for the legal underpinning of that,” he told ABC radio.

“So to be completely clear, there is no circumstance in which we will be taking waste from any other country.

“We made clear in March of last year that we will be responsible for our own nuclear waste and that will involve the disposal of the spent nuclear reactors.”

Mr Albanese said the updated AUKUS agreement would not involve the transfer of nuclear waste.

“There’ll be no nuclear transfer from either the US or the UK That’s the detail. That’s very clear, and that’s not part of the arrangement,” Mr Albanese said.

“We’ve agreed to have nuclear-powered submarines. That’s what we’ve agreed to and the transfer of technology that’s related to that.”