Paul Keating takes swipe at AUKUS ministers meeting in London

Former prime minister Paul Keating has slammed the AUKUS alliance partners for failing to respond to concerns about the future of Australian military sovereignty.

Richard Marles, left, with British Defence Secretary John Healey, centre, and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin at the Old Royal Naval College in London. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Former prime minister Paul Keating has claimed two of the AUKUS alliance partners have failed to materially respond to criticisms of the AUKUS arrangement, instead throwing “a 10,000-mile punch at me” from the Old Royal Naval College in England where Australia, the US and the UK had been meeting.

Mr Keating, an opponent of the tripartite alliance and the $368bn nuclear-powered submarine program, insisted that Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin were beginning to wilt under sustained criticism that AUKUS will abrogate Australia’s sovereign right to command its own continent and its military forces.

Mr Keating wrote in a blistering attack: “Marles, unable to sustain a cogent argument himself, has his US friend propping him up in London to throw a 10,000-mile punch at me”, referring to Mr Austin’s claims that AUKUS would not compromise Australia’s ability to decide it’s own sovereign defence issues, a claim also made earlier by Mr Marles and Anthony Albanese.

Paul Keating is a strident critic of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program. Picture: John Feder

Mr Keating retorted that “this statement would only be true until the Prime Minister and Marles got their phone call from the President, seeking to mobilise Australian military assets – wherein, both would click their heels in alacrity and agreement”.

Mr Marles had said at the college that the AUKUS program matched Mr Keating’s policy when Mr Keating committed to the Collins-class submarine program. Mr Keating said this was completely untrue as the Collins submarine at 3400 tonnes was designed for the shallow waters off the continental shelf and was nothing like the attack submarine of the 10,000-tonne US Virginia-class boat, which Australia will procure in the interim before the SSN-AUKUS submarine will be ready.

He said the Virginia-class would be used “principally to wait and sink Chinese nuclear weapon submarines as they exit the Chinese coast”.

Mr Marles said AUKUS was “one of the biggest reforms to defence trade seen in decades”, economically enhancing industry in building jobs, skills and capabilities in Australia.

He said a planned rotation of US and UK nuclear-powered submarines being maintained in Australia from 2027 was “on track”, noting that last month a Virginia-class submarine underwent maintenance in Perth – the first time such work had happened outside of a US military base and the first time non-US citizens had worked on such a submarine.

Mr Marles also remarked how AUKUS Pillar 2 was also developing, with work on classified advanced algorithms to process vast amounts of data picked up by sonar buoys “to greatly enhance our decision-making undersea”.

“That’s one demonstration that AUKUS is happening at a pace,” he said.

British Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed the new British Labour government’s support for AUKUS. Mr Healey announced that Sting Ray torpedos would be added to hunting aircraft across all three nations of the AUKUS alliance to counter deep-diving and conventional submarines, and that the training of Australians in the British nuclear industry would be greatly expanded.

Mr Healey also said the new bilateral treaty to be negotiated between Australia and the UK would “bind the AUKUS collaboration into law”, noting it reflected a British commitment to secure the Indo-Pacific region and “also sends the very strong message our defence alliance will endure for many decades”.

The Albanese government has committed nearly $250m to start delivering the skills and workforce needed for the submarine program. This is on top of $30bn invested to develop Australia’s supply chains and facilitate industry participation in US and UK supply chains.