‘Extreme urgency’: Tony Abbott calls for nuclear submarine stop gap

Fresh from his Beijing swipe, former PM says Australia must obtain retiring British or US nuclear submarines amid concerns over AUKUS deal.

Former Australian PM Tony Abbott has addressed the AUKUS deal in Washington.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has urged the government to obtain retiring British or American nuclear powered-submarines as soon as possible, reflecting concern the new AUKUS security pact struck between Australia, the US and UK won’t deliver new submarines fast enough to counter Chinese aggression.

In remarks in Washington, Mr Abbott, fresh from delivering a provocatively scathing assessment of Chinese foreign policy in Taiwan last week, said Australia needed “new subs now, not in 10 or 20 years time … The sooner we have a much more substantial sovereign capability the better for everyone”.

“One of the things I hope our government is exploring as an extreme urgency would be the possibility of taking over retiring British or American nuclear subs, if needs be with a composite crew … running them as part training part operational boats, if need be based in Guam,” he added.

The new AUKUS security pact announced last month will see Australia obtain at least eight nuclear-powered submarines after the government tore up a $90bn earlier agreement to acquire conventionally powered from France.

“I can understand the French being a little bit miffed, it is a blow to their pride, I am very confident that he fundamental goodwill between French an Australian people will be unscathed by this,” Mr Abbott said, noting 46,000 Australians had died defending France in World War I.

“The deal with the French had many exit ramps, that was part of the contract, so we haven’t broken the contract, we have simply chosen to take an exit ramp,” he added.

The AUKUS agreement, kept under wraps for months by the three government, envisages an 18 month period for the government to contract for construction of nuclear submarines, to be built at least in part in Australia, from British or American manufacturers.

The UK has suggested sending a few nuclear submarines to be based in Australia, while Defence Minister Peter Dutton has previously raised the idea of “leasing” nuclear subs, in the interim.

Tony Abbott with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei on October 7.

Speaking in an online forum hosted by Project2049, a US non-profit dedicated to promoting US interests in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Abbott also urged Japan to become a member of the ‘five eyes’ group of nations, which includes Australia, the US and New Zealand.

“Certainly I’d like to see Japan effectively in the 5 eyes because Japan would bring enormous insight and capability to it,” he said, also revealing his inclination as prime minister in 2013 to award the submarine contract, which ultimately went to France, to Japan because it had “skin in the game unlike European nations”.

“Japan’s subs are in a region which would be traversed by both Chinese and Russian nuclear submarines,” Mr Abbott said.

“And I was confident Japan would not put its submariners to sea in boats that weren’t more than capable of taking on any potential adversary,” he added.

Mr Abbot’s remarks in Washington continue what’s become a global campaign of the former prime minister to build support for Taiwan, a democratic Chinese island nation of 24 million, which is increasingly fearful of losing sovereign to Beijing as the communist nation seeks to assert greater control in the Asia-Pacific region.

“I want the people of Taiwan to know that they are not nearly as isolated as Beijing would like them to feel,” he said in Taiwan.

“While Taiwan is a 10-hour flight from Australia it is a like-minded society. It is a free and liberal society, which has evolved magnificently in last few decades … a living breathing refutation of the idea there’s some totalitarian gene in Chinese DNA,” Mr Abbott said on Friday.

Mr Abbott also said that “no self-respecting Australian government should support China’s application to join the Transpacific Partnership, while some $20bn of our trade is being capriciously disrupted for political purposes”.

Taiwan, the US and the UK should be admitted, though, he said. “It is most unfortunate that domestic politics in the US ultimately prevented the US from being part of that which was its original conception,” Mr Abbott said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the nascent trading bloc in 2017.