Former Defence boss accuses Malcolm Turnbull of ‘undermining’ AUKUS

Veteran public servant Dennis Richardson, one of the few pro-AUKUS voices at a one-day security forum organised by the former PM, argued AUKUS may ‘fall over’.

Former Defence, Foreign Affairs and ASIO boss Dennis Richardson says Malcolm Turnbull is eroding Australia’s chances of getting nuclear submarines. Picture: Martin Ollman

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Veteran public servant Dennis Richardson has accused Malcolm Turnbull of undermining Australia’s chances of getting nuclear submarines by arguing AUKUS may “fall over”.

Mr Richardson was one of the few pro-AUKUS voices at a one-day security forum organised by Mr Turnbull, who argued the US under Donald Trump was a less reliable ally and could not be trusted to deliver a promised three to five Virginia-class submarines to Australia.

The former prime minister said US submarine production was so far behind schedule that it would renege on its AUKUS commitment, requiring Australia to come up with a “Plan B”.

But Mr Richardson, a former Defence, Foreign Affairs and ASIO boss who is conducting a “top to bottom review” of the Australian Submarine Agency, saidsuch talk threatened the AUKUS enterprise.

“You’re almost making the ‘if’ a certainty – that we won’t get it,” he told Mr Turnbull.

“I think there’s a good chance we will get it. It depends upon the degree of commitment that we have in this country and our preparedness to pursue it as a national enterprise, not as a defence project.

“Now, all right, we may fail, but I don’t think the fact that we may fail should become a certainty that we will fail.”

Mr Richardson said abandoning the $368bn AUKUS agreement would show “we have learned nothing”.

Mr Turnbull replied by quoting Athenian historian and general Thucydides: “It just reminds me of one of the great lines from the Athenians to the Melians, when they said to them, remember, ‘hope is danger’s comforter’.”

He said Australia, with “exquisitely bad timing”, had made itself more dependent on the US just when it was becoming less dependable.

“Donald Trump plainly does not believe in the international rules-based order,” Mr Turnbull said.

“We cannot allow our affection for America and Americans, our long shared history, to blind us from the objective reality that the United States has political values under this administration more aligned to the ‘might is right’ world view of (Vladimir) Putin than they are to ours.”

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

He said US submarine production, which is languishing at less than half the output needed to supply Australia with three Virginia-class boats, meant the nation could “end up with no submarines at all”.

Retired submarine commander Peter Briggs used the forum to argue Australia should abandon AUKUS and go back to France – which was furious at the cancellation of the Attack-class submarine program – to request it build the nation 12 of its Suffren-class nuclear boats.

Rear Admiral Briggs said AUKUS was a “flawed plan” that appeared to have been “designed by a couple of political advisers in a coffee shop”.

He said the Suffren was smaller than the Virginia or future AUKUS-class submarines, requiring smaller crews, and would allow Australia to “be in charge of our own destiny”.

France’s ambassador to Australia, Pierre-André Imbert, was in the audience but declined to comment on the suggestion.

ANU Emeritus Professor Hugh White said Mr Trump had exposed the foundations of Australian foreign policy as false by demonstrating the US’s lack of commitment to the rules-based order and the fragility of its leadership in Asia.

“I think the historians are going to judge, but … Donald Trump’s doing us a favour by making clear to us things we’ve been determined not to recognise for ourselves,” Professor White said.

Former ambassador to China Geoff Raby said China – “the 500kg panda in the room” – would continue to project power globally, as it did when it sent three powerful warships to circumnavigate Australia in February-March.

But he said there was little probability of China becoming an existential threat to Australia because it was preoccupied with safeguarding its borders, managing internal disputes in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet, and keeping its economy going.

“China is and will remain a constrained superpower or, as I call it, a Prometheus power,” Mr Raby said.