Submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry
This is my submission to the Aukus Public Inquiry. Feel free to copy any part and use segments in your own submission, or make a comment below if you have issues with my views. Australians deserve to be heard on this issue.
Will AUKUS Keep Australia Safe — and at What Cost?
I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Public Inquiry into AUKUS.
My central concern is that Australia is committing an extraordinary amount of public money to a defence program that remains uncertain in delivery, uncertain in strategic benefit, and highly uncertain in its long-term consequences for Australian sovereignty, regional stability and public spending priorities.
The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program has been presented as a necessary response to a deteriorating strategic environment. Yet Australians have not been given a clear, convincing public case that this program will make us safer, that the submarines will be delivered when promised, or that the opportunity cost is justified.
At an estimated cost of at least $368 billion over more than 30 years, AUKUS is not merely a defence purchase. It is a generational national commitment. It will shape the Australian Defence Force, the federal budget, our relationship with the United States, our relationship with China and the Indo-Pacific region, and the type of country we become.
Before Australia proceeds further, there must be a much more rigorous public test of whether AUKUS is the best use of national resources.
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Australia Is Committing Vast Sums Without Sufficient Certainty
Australia appears to be making one of the largest defence commitments in its history without a clear guarantee that the United States will be able or willing to deliver the submarines Australia expects.
The AUKUS plan relies heavily on the future availability of US Virginia-class submarines and on the capacity of American shipyards to meet both US and Australian requirements. Yet the United States has its own naval needs, its own industrial constraints, and its own domestic political instability. A future US administration may change priorities. Congress may impose conditions. American strategic needs may come first.
Australia should not commit hundreds of billions of dollars to a program where delivery depends so heavily on another country’s industrial capacity, political mood and strategic priorities.
This raises a fundamental sovereignty issue. If Australia cannot build, maintain, operate and deploy this capability independently, then the public deserves to know exactly what level of operational independence Australia will truly have.
A defence capability that cannot be used without another country’s permission, technology, maintenance support or strategic approval is not fully sovereign.
The Opportunity Cost Is Enormous
The public debate around AUKUS has often treated defence spending as if it exists in a separate universe from the rest of national life. It does not.
Every dollar committed to AUKUS is a dollar not available for hospitals, schools, roads, housing, aged care, climate resilience, public transport, regional development, disaster preparedness, veterans’ care and other defence capabilities.
Australians can see the pressure on essential services every day. Roads are deteriorating. Hospitals are under strain. Schools need more teachers, better facilities and better support for students. Housing affordability is a national crisis. Regional communities face rising costs, infrastructure gaps and climate-related disasters.
Against that background, committing at least $368 billion to a small number of submarines that may not be fully delivered until the 2050s demands extraordinary justification.
The question is not whether defence matters. Of course it does. The question is whether this particular defence program delivers the greatest possible security benefit for the Australian people.
AUKUS may crowd out other defence priorities as well. Australia needs surveillance, cyber resilience, northern infrastructure, air defence, missile defence, maritime patrol, hardened bases, fuel security, local manufacturing, drones, counter-drone systems and disaster response capability. If AUKUS consumes the budget and political attention needed for these capabilities, it may reduce rather than increase Australia’s practical security.
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Modern Warfare Is Changing Faster Than AUKUS Can Deliver
The AUKUS submarine program is built around a small number of highly expensive, crewed, nuclear-powered platforms. These submarines may have great range, endurance and stealth, but they also represent an older model of military procurement: fewer assets, greater complexity, longer timelines and immense cost.
Modern warfare is moving in a different direction.
Ukraine has shown that cheaper, faster, uncrewed systems can impose heavy costs on more expensive military platforms. Aerial drones, FPV drones, loitering munitions and especially uncrewed maritime systems have changed the battlefield. Ukraine’s use of sea drones against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has demonstrated that a country without a traditional large navy can still contest the sea.
Sea drones and autonomous undersea vehicles should be taken seriously as direct competitors to nuclear-powered submarines in many roles. They are not perfect substitutes for submarines, but they may perform many of the most important missions more cheaply, quickly and in greater numbers.
These systems can patrol, surveil, map, listen, deceive, mine, strike and gather intelligence. They can be produced in larger numbers. They can be risked without crews. They can be redesigned quickly after battlefield experience. They can be networked with satellites, aircraft, seabed sensors, cyber systems and land-based missiles. They suit a sea-denial strategy, where Australia does not need to dominate distant oceans but must make its own approaches, sea lanes and northern waters difficult and dangerous for any adversary.
A nuclear-powered submarine is a national treasure. A sea drone is expendable. That difference matters.
An adversary that detects an Australian nuclear submarine has located an asset worth billions of dollars and carrying Australian lives. An adversary that detects one Australian sea drone has found only one part of a larger distributed system. There may be many more.
Australia should not pour the bulk of its future naval ambition into a small number of highly expensive crewed platforms if cheaper, faster and more numerous autonomous systems can deliver more immediate security at lower risk.
Sea Drones and Autonomous Systems Deserve Greater Priority
The inquiry should closely examine whether Australia would be better served by a layered maritime defence strategy built around autonomous and uncrewed systems.
Such a strategy could include uncrewed surface vessels, autonomous underwater vehicles, long-endurance surveillance drones, seabed sensor networks, smart mines, anti-submarine drones, robotic decoys, land-based anti-ship missiles, maritime patrol aircraft, cyber capabilities and hardened northern bases.
This would not require Australia to abandon advanced defence technology. Quite the opposite. It would require Australia to invest in the technologies most likely to shape the next war rather than those that dominated the last century.
Australia already has promising local work in autonomous undersea vehicles and uncrewed surface vessels. These technologies should not be treated as side projects while AUKUS consumes the national defence imagination. They may be central to the future of maritime security.
The inquiry should ask whether the balance of investment between AUKUS Pillar 1 and autonomous capabilities is wrong. If Australia can develop sovereign, Australian-made autonomous maritime systems faster and cheaper than nuclear submarines, this deserves urgent attention.
AUKUS May Increase the Risk of Conflict Rather Than Reduce It
AUKUS is often described as a deterrent. But deterrence can become provocation if it is not matched by diplomacy, restraint and regional trust-building.
Australia must be honest about the risk that AUKUS ties us more closely to United States military strategy in the Indo-Pacific. The greatest danger is that Australia becomes not safer, but more useful to the United States in a future conflict with China.
Australia has followed the United States into disastrous wars before, including Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Those experiences should make Australia cautious about assuming American strategic judgement is always correct or that Australian interests are identical to American interests.
The risk of conflict with China is already amplified by great-power rivalry, military build-up, Taiwan tensions, the South China Sea, trade disputes, cyber operations and domestic politics in Washington and Beijing. Australia should not make war more likely by allowing itself to become a forward platform or automatic participant in a US-led conflict.
Diplomacy with China, Australia’s largest trading partner, is not weakness. It is essential statecraft.
Australia can and should defend its sovereignty, protect its institutions, strengthen its resilience and stand against coercion. But that must be balanced with a clear-eyed understanding that China is central to Australia’s economy and region. We have to live in the Indo-Pacific permanently. The United States does not.
A responsible Australian security policy should reduce the risk of war, not prepare so obediently for it that war becomes more likely.
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Regional Consequences Must Be Taken Seriously
AUKUS also affects Australia’s relationships with ASEAN, Pacific Island nations and the wider region. Many of Australia’s neighbours are deeply sensitive to nuclear issues, militarisation and great-power rivalry.
Australia must ask whether acquiring nuclear-powered submarines strengthens regional trust or undermines it. It must also ask how AUKUS sits with Australia’s longstanding support for nuclear non-proliferation and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.
Even if the submarines are conventionally armed, the introduction of naval nuclear propulsion creates questions about safety, waste, port visits, emergency response, regulation and long-term storage. These questions cannot be waved away with assurances. They require public explanation and consent.
First Nations communities must be fully consulted about any nuclear waste storage proposal. Australia’s history of nuclear testing, uranium mining and waste debates gives communities every reason to demand transparency.
The Public Has Not Been Properly Consulted
One of the most troubling features of AUKUS is the lack of meaningful public consultation before the commitment was made.
A decision of this scale should never be presented to the Australian people as a finished deal. The public should have been shown the strategic rationale, the risks, the alternatives, the budget trade-offs and the long-term implications before Australia was locked into the path.
Parliamentary scrutiny has also been inadequate. AUKUS is too large, too expensive and too consequential to be handled as a matter of executive announcement and bipartisan defence consensus.
Australians deserve more than slogans about deterrence and alliance loyalty. They deserve evidence.
Recommendations
I respectfully submit that the inquiry should recommend:
That the Australian Government pause further major AUKUS commitments until a full independent parliamentary inquiry has assessed the strategic, financial, environmental and sovereignty implications of the program.
That the government release a public version of the business case for AUKUS, including delivery risks, opportunity costs and alternatives considered.
That Australia seek clear, binding and public commitments from the United States regarding submarine delivery, technology transfer, maintenance, operational sovereignty and the conditions under which Australia may use the submarines.
That the government conduct a full opportunity-cost assessment comparing AUKUS expenditure with investment in roads, hospitals, schools, housing, climate resilience and other defence capabilities.
That the government commission an independent assessment of whether autonomous maritime systems, sea drones, underwater drones, land-based missiles, sensors and cyber capabilities could provide more cost-effective defence of Australia’s maritime approaches.
That Australia greatly increase investment in sovereign uncrewed maritime systems, including uncrewed surface vessels, autonomous underwater vehicles, seabed sensors and counter-drone technologies.
That no nuclear waste storage site be selected without full public disclosure, environmental assessment and free, prior and informed consent from affected First Nations communities.
That Australia reaffirm diplomacy with China as a central pillar of national security, alongside defence preparedness.
That the government state clearly that Australia will not automatically participate in any US-led conflict with China or any other country.
Conclusion
Australia needs a strong defence policy, but strength is not measured by the price of the weapons we buy. It is measured by whether those choices actually make Australians safer.
AUKUS may deliver a powerful capability decades from now. It may also deliver dependency, debt, nuclear risk, regional tension and a defence force distorted around a small number of extremely expensive platforms.
Meanwhile, warfare is changing. Cheap drones, sea drones, autonomous underwater vehicles, sensors, cyber systems and missiles are already reshaping the battlefield. Australia should not ignore this shift while committing hundreds of billions of dollars to submarines that may arrive late, cost more than promised, and face a very different maritime threat environment by the time they enter service.
The question before this inquiry is not whether Australia should defend itself. It must.
The question is whether AUKUS is the smartest, safest and most sovereign way to do so.
On the evidence available to the public, that case has not been made.
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Have your say here: aukuspublicinquiry.com
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