Any AUKUS pledges ‘won’t be worth paper they’re written on’: Turnbull

Washington: Australia cannot give the US a guarantee it would use AUKUS submarines to defend American interests in any conflict with China, and any such assurances “would not be worth the paper they’re (not) written on”, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says.

Confirming his past conversations with US defence official Elbridge Colby, who is leading a Pentagon review of the AUKUS deal, Turnbull said it was impossible for Australia to promise nuclear-powered submarines for a hypothetical contingency.

“No Australian government can commit any of its defence assets in advance to some future conflict. And the American government wouldn’t do that,” he said in an interview.

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull has been critical of the AUKUS deal.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“In any event, even if one government were to make a commitment of that kind, it couldn’t bind a successor government. And circumstances change. In this area, you really cannot deal in hypotheticals.”

Last week, this masthead revealed Colby was seeking a public declaration or private guarantee from Australia that it would use the US-made submarines it buys under AUKUS in a possible future conflict with China.

Later, the Pentagon confirmed a Financial Times story that said Colby wanted Australia and Japan to clarify the role they would play in a conflict over Taiwan. A senior US defence official said a key issue in the AUKUS review was the submarine “command structure” in the event of war.

Turnbull is a vocal AUKUS critic who, as prime minister, championed a submarine deal with France, which was canned in favour of AUKUS.

On Tuesday, The Australian reported Turnbull held substantial conversations with Colby about the AUKUS agreement and its defects.

Confirming those interactions, Turnbull said: “I have not spoken to Bridge Colby since he became undersecretary [for defence]. But I’ve spoken to him many times beforehand, and I know him and respect him.

“I don’t say anything privately that I don’t say publicly. My views on this are well known … my argument is we have to become more patriotic and more focused on Australian sovereignty and Australian independence.”

Turnbull said the nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines were the most valued asset of the US Navy and noted the US was not currently building enough of them. The current production rate is about 1.2 boats a year, which needs to increase to 2.3 to satisfy US domestic needs and AUKUS obligations.

“In those circumstances, as Bridge [Colby] has said publicly, how can you responsibly part with them?” Turnbull said. “If you part with them, even to your best friend, you can’t be sure they would be available in the event of a conflict.”

Turnbull said he did not know if Colby was seeking such assurances, “but those assurances cannot be given”. “Even if they were given, they’re not worth the paper they’re (not) written on,” he said.

Speaking from China this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declined to give an explicit public assurance that Australia’s nuclear submarines would help the US in a future conflict, suggesting that he valued the longstanding doctrine of strategic ambiguity – a policy of giving no public declarations about military plans.

The AUKUS agreement, brokered under former leaders Joe Biden and Scott Morrison, has bipartisan support in Australia despite its prominent detractors, including Turnbull and former Labor prime minister Paul Keating.

Coalition assistant defence spokesman Phil Thompson, an army veteran, said on Tuesday that Turnbull should stop “throwing grenades from the sidelines”, accusing him of trying to undermine AUKUS. Turnbull has regularly criticised the deal, including at the National Press Club and in a lecture last month at the Jeff Bleich Centre.

But Turnbull said AUKUS boosters exhibited groupthink.

“I get criticised for simply acknowledging reality. It is not a crime in Australia not to drink the Kool-Aid in Canberra,” he said.

“A lot of the people who talk about national security in this country need to become more patriotic.

“They have a misconception of what Australia’s national security is about. They seem to think our national security is simply a function of being more and more deferential to the US.”

The Pentagon has pushed back against suggestions it is solely focused on the contingency of a war with China over Taiwan. A US defence official, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the Pentagon’s concerns were wider than that.

“It is about how we can reasonably expect these kinds of critical assets [the submarines] to be allocated across different scenarios,” he said.

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