French President Emmanuel Macron and his sidekick, Malcolm Turnbull, made a mockery of Australian national security on the global stage. They played loose with the truth when accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of deceit over the new security partnership with the US and UK, AUKUS. As part of the tripartite pact, AUKUS members will develop advanced nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian Navy. The subs deal with French state-owned company Naval Group was collateral damage. The friendship between France and Australia should not have been.
On the periphery of the G20 conference, Macron sidled up to the press and issued a motherhood statement about respecting Australians before rounding on his target: “I just say when you have respect, you have to behave in line … with those values.” Fairfax reporter Bevan Shields tossed the Frenchman a bone: “Do you think he (Scott Morrison) lied to you?” Macron paused for effect: “I don’t think, I know.” The media went into a feeding frenzy. Macron confirmed their deep fear and dismal belief that a conservative Christian PM must be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Turnbull slithered on to the scene in Glasgow where he soothed Macron’s ego by corroborating his untruth.
After the French President and the press put Morrison on trial, he did what an honest person would do and provided evidence to show his innocence. That should have been the moment when the media called off the hunt, but some were so invested in the lie they had been peddling to the public that they gave airtime to whoever shouted “j’accuse!” in the PM’s general direction.
It is easier to race to the bottom of the barrel than examine the evidence. The reason Australia terminated the contract with Naval Group is because the company failed to deliver. A review handed down by the National Audit Office in January 2020 found the submarine program was running nine months over time. It had missed two major contracted milestones. Auditors noted that Defence had adopted risk mitigation strategies and classified the submarine program as high risk.
The French company failed to meet key milestones and its problem with punctuality was reportedly at the micro as well as macro levels. The ABC reported in 2019 that French workers apparently resented long lunch breaks being interrupted and were “surprised” by the Australians’ insistence that meetings start on time. To overcome the problems, Naval Group proposed “intercultural courses”.
The intervention of the French President was too little, too late. Instead of expressing remorse for his state company’s failure to deliver submarines vital to Australian security, he accused the PM of lying. On Macron’s watch, a government company missed major milestones, overpromised and underdelivered on jobs for Australian workers and blew out timelines. In a corporate context, any one of those issues could be grounds for terminating a contract. The fact the company was government-owned made the contractual failure a matter of state.
The Australian-French subs deal fell victim to the bloated bureaucracy syndrome that plagues France. The hostile relations between old friends must be overcome. But the French ambassador to Australia, Jean-Pierre Thebault, has some explaining to do. He used the privileged forum of the National Press Club to accuse the Australian government of “intentional deceit”. It is a big call not supported by the evidence. Macron claimed he was unaware of Australian plans to withdraw from the deal before the AUKUS security pact was announced. But days earlier, he had declined a call from Morrison about it. The Daily Telegraph reported that two days before the deal was announced, Macron sent Morrison a text message asking: “Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarine ambitions?” The French President knew the submarine deal was in dire straits. Staff on the ground in Adelaide knew it. Everyone involved had known it for at least a year.
Australia deserves an apology from Macron and Thebault. They must get over their egos and act like men of state instead of miffed little boys. Australia could extend the olive branch by considering a new collaboration, perhaps with Japan. To deny the friendship between Australia and France plays right into the hands of Chinese aims to destabilise Western powers in the Indo-Pacific.
China stands to benefit from deteriorating relations between free-world countries, especially those that share geopolitical interests in regions it wants to dominate. The South China Morning Post reported that after the AUKUS partnership was announced, Chinese President Xi Jinping advised Macron that the EU should assert foreign policy autonomy from the group. It is saddening to see Macron fulfilling Xi’s ambitions. China is making too much of tensions between Western powers and too little of its status as the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitter. Last year, it was one of the few states to increase GHG emissions even as it denounced Western nations for doing too little to reduce them. China’s emissions are 31 per cent of the global share and rising.
The Chinese Communist Party’s dream of replacing America as the world’s leading superpower has been trumped by its status as the world’s worst super emitter. Powerful elites who could have held China to account at the UN climate summit failed and the Australian media was too easily distracted. Turnbull and Macron stole the show by knifing the PM and demanding his contrition as they twisted the knife in his back.
Australia and France are friends. We share too much history to let little men with big egos bury our future.
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