Husic breaks ranks to demand rethink of Labor’s support for AUKUS

Phillip Coorey and Nicola Smith, 2 June 26

In a move which sparked speculation of a wider internal insurrection, Husic, during Tuesday’s caucus meeting, and at a press conference afterwards, said Labor should reconsider its support for AUKUS, which was hastily given when it was in opposition.

“The reality is this deal has changed. It’s not the deal that we agreed to way back when. And the reason the deal is changing is because … in the US, they cannot produce at the rate that they want to, and at the rate we need them to – that is the reality.”

Labor’s support for AUKUS has long been internally contentious and is bound to feature once more when the party holds its triennial national conference in Adelaide in July.

Labor Against War convenor Marcus Strom, who led a revolt at the last national conference in Brisbane, backed Husic.

Now that dodgy Pete Hegseth has again changed the AUKUS deal, it’s right that Ed Husic has called for a caucus vote on the nuclear subs pact,” he said, referring to the US secretary of defence. “Who pays the same price for a used car that they’d pay for a new one? Caucus should follow logic – and their conscience – to reject AUKUS altogether.”

“The best time to dump AUKUS was in 2022 when Labor won office. The next best time is now.”

Husic broke ranks on the same day Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor MP Peter Garrett, along with former admiral Chris Barrie and former West Australian Labor premier Carmen Lawrence, launched an independent crowd-funded inquiry into AUKUS.

They were backed by the teal independents.

At a weekend defence ministers meeting in Singapore, the AUKUS nations – Australia, the UK and US – agreed on an updated plan to contain costs and simplify the historic security pact, revealing that the first three Australian purchases of US-built nuclear-powered submarines would now be confined to used vessels, instead of two

used and one new.

Under pillar 1 of AUKUS agreed in March 2023, Australia was set to buy at least three new and used Virginia-class submarines from the US Navy from 2030, to plug a gap between the retirement of Collins-class vessels and the new SSN-AUKUS models coming off production lines in the 2040s.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese played down the importance of the change, claiming that when Labor inherited AUKUS from the Morrison government, there was “very little real detail on what it entailed”.

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said there were no details about the Virginia submarine purchases when Labor was in opposition, with this needing to be worked out in government. He said the caucus vote was about whether Labor would support nuclear-propelled submarines being built in Australia.

Opposition defence spokesman Senator James Paterson seized on the Labor rift to question the government’s commitment to the nuclear-powered submarine agreement, pointing to the groundswell of “prominent former Labor figures” sharing Husic’s scepticism about the program’s progress.

“It’s former Labor prime ministers like Paul Keating, it’s key Labor unions, it’s Labor branches. It’s very clear that the Labor grassroots is questioning this government’s ability to deliver AUKUS, and even going as far as questioning whether or not we should proceed with AUKUS at all,” he said………………………………………

Defence experts have raised concerns the development could risk a capability gap as the second-hand craft have a shorter lifespan.

Under pillar 1 of the security pact, the Australian navy would not take delivery of its first domestically built SSN-AUKUS submarines until the early 2040s, after the acquisition of the Virginia-class craft.

“I think we do need to have a public conversation about contingency plans prudently made for any capability gaps that might arise,” said Paterson. “It could open up that could leave Australia exposed, and I think we need to look at supplementary capabilities that could help fill that gap.” https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/husic-breaks-ranks-to-demand-rethink-of-labor-s-support-for-aukus-20260602-p6036q