Labor to query AUKUS ramifications on sovereignty

Penny Wong casts doubt over the nuclear sub fleet, questioning control of the technology and whether Australia ‘can act alone’.

Penny Wong will raise concerns over whether Australia’s growing dependence on Washington could compromise the nation’s ‘sovereign capability’. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Penny Wong has cast doubt over Labor’s commitment to the US-backed nuclear submarine fleet, raising new questions about Australia’s control of the technology and whether the nation “can act alone” in defending itself.

Senator Wong will use a major foreign policy speech to accuse Scott Morrison of authorising the multi-decade nuclear submarine program on the eve of an election and flag that Labor will target “valid questions about Australia’s sovereign capability”.

The US Studies Centre speech – outlining Australia’s contribution to American engagement in the Indo-Pacific – comes after Senator Wong was lashed by former prime minister Paul Keating over “her muted complicity with the government’s foreign policy and posture”.

Senator Wong on Thursday will declare that the new technology and capabilities required for the submarines would not belong to Australia and ramped up pressure on the Morrison government to “inform the Australian people on the strategic, environmental, commercial, and political ramifications and consequences of this decision”.

“Including valid questions about Australia’s sovereign capability. Such as how will we control the use of technology and capability that is not ours? What implications are there for the design, assembly, operation and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines,” Senator Wong will say.

“These are in addition to our concerns about how capability gaps will be managed, time frame, costs and the impact on Australian jobs.”

Senator Wong will also raise concerns over whether Australia’s growing dependence on Washington could compromise the nation’s “sovereign capability” and ability to defend itself.

“There is an important question here for Australia’s sovereignty. It’s one that Mr Morrison cannot ignore, and one that people like Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd have alluded to over many years,” she will say. “With the prospect of a higher level of technological dependence on the US, how does the Morrison-Joyce government assure Australians that we can act alone when need be; that we have the autonomy to defend ourselves, however and whenever we need to?”

Senator Wong said these issues would be “priorities for us” over coming months whether Labor remained in opposition or won government at the next election.

Mr Keating, who last week criticised the AUKUS defence pact as a “dramatic loss” of Australian sovereignty, on Wednesday accused Senator Wong of neutering “Labor’s traditional stance as to Australia’s right to strategic autonomy”. “Wong went along with the stance of Julie Bishop and Marise Payne, and did it with licence provided by Bill Shorten as leader, and now, Anthony Albanese,” he said.

In response to Mr Keating’s criticism, Mr Albanese defended Senator Wong and said federal Labor was forging its “own path”.

“Anyone who watches Penny Wong in Senate Estimates grill the Foreign Minister and the Defence Minister and the appropriate bureaucrats will know the idea that Penny Wong is compliant with the government is just not right,” Mr Albanese said.

Mr Albanese, who has committed to a new Defence Force Posture Review if he wins the election, said “the strategic question is, how do we best defend Australia?”

“The submarine arrangement is based upon the best advice. Labor has always, including when Paul was prime minister, put our national security interests front and centre, and a government that I lead will do that,” he said.

Foreshadowing Labor’s approach to the government’s nuclear submarine program, Senator Wong will say Labor would prioritise its concerns “through the consultation phase” and challenged Morrison to bring the ALP into the tent and keep it informed on how the project was advancing.

“Which is why Anthony Albanese has proposed a bipartisan consultation mechanism on this proposal – this partnership and this procurement cannot be at the mercy of changing political winds, particularly in this pre-caretaker period.

“This needs to be about the long term national interest. The handling of this multi-decade project on the eve on an election is a moment of truth for Mr Morrison’s stewardship of the alliance.”

While Labor has endorsed the AUKUS agreement and its more technologically advanced nuclear submarines under three conditions, which Mr Morrison has said would be met, Senator Wong will argue the military pact is not a replacement for the ANZUS alliance, East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum, APEC and Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

“Central to maximising our influence in the region is looking to build greater alignment around matters on which other regional partners share similar interests. The anxiety expressed in some of the reactions to the AUKUS announcement suggests that more preparatory work could have been done to assure our partners of the practical implications of these announcements – including compliance with our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”

Ahead of this week’s first in-person meeting of Quad leaders in Washington, which will focus on the vital roles of ASEAN nations under its Indo-Pacific strategy, Senator Wong will say “our strategic ambitions must be matched by equally ambitious efforts to respond to the region’s needs”.

“We share with ASEAN states an abiding interest in averting hegemony by any single power – so this is where our energy must be applied.

“Submarines might help protect the region, but on their own they won’t build the region we want – a region that is stable, prosperous, as well as respectful of sovereignty. And submarines can help our national defence, but won’t of themselves prevent efforts at economic coercion.

“Yet last week, Mr Morrison had the air of ‘mission accomplished’ about him – when the response to the announcement made painfully obvious that only a fraction of the job has been done.”

After France last week recalled its ambassador to Australia, Jean-Pierre Thebault, and threatened to scuttle Australia-European Union free trade agreement negotiations, Senator Wong will say international reactions to the AUKUS and nuclear submarine deal highlight “how much work there is to do with other partners in our region”.

Mr Morrison has said high-level security concerns, which may have jeopardised the nuclear submarines deal, prevented him from giving prior warning to the French government about Australia’s decision to scrap the $90bn future submarines program.

Senator Wong will say “the lack of diplomatic legwork was most acutely observed in the French reaction”.

“France ought to have been shown the due respect of a partner with shared Indo-Pacific interests. Instead, it’s been reported, that having failed to put in the work before the announcement, members of the government are now describing the French as ‘having a sook’. It won’t just be France that will have doubts over whether Mr Morrison can be trusted as an honest partner – after a letter from his government saying they were satisfied with the French project was delivered to the Macron government on the same day as his television announcement that the project was being dumped.”