Christopher Pyne says the AUKUS pact is unlikely to be delivered on time and on budget, but the former defence minister believes acquiring a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines will still provide an important deterrent to China and powerful boost to Australia’s military capabilities.
Pyne, who now runs a lobbying firm whose clients include major defence contractors, said that an underappreciated part of the AUKUS pact was that it would provide the US navy a new submarine base for the United States in Western Australia, opening up its access to the Indian Ocean.
Pyne, who served as defence minister from 2018 to 2019, told a crowd-funded public inquiry chaired by former Labor minister Peter Garrett that AUKUS was a huge national endeavour, bigger than opening up the Olympic Dam mine in the late 1980s.
“It’s not like buying a watering system at Bunnings and putting it in over the weekend on your own,” Pyne said of the plan to acquire a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines in co-operation with the US and United Kingdom.
“Do I think they’ll deliver it on time and on budget? No, I don’t. I can say that now because I’m not in public life any more, but I don’t think they will … I think they’ll give it a good go.”
He added that he did not think this was the most important priority for the project.
“I think that national security is the most important priority, and I think it will give us a very lethal capability which will keep the peace in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Pyne’s comments came as China’s top diplomat in Australia Xiao Qian prepares to leave his post within weeks following an eventful four-and-a-half-year posting that has seen normal trading ties resume between the nations but included flare-ups over defence and foreign interference. Xiao wrote an opinion piece, published in this masthead earlier this month, accusing Western intelligence agencies including ASIO of fabricating espionage claims against China.
Pyne, a longtime AUKUS advocate, said he had thought twice about appearing before the inquiry because he believed most of those involved in it were strongly opposed to AUKUS, but decided to appear because he believed in the “battle of ideas”.
Outlining the strategic rationale for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, which can travel vast distances without refuelling, Pyne said: “China’s blue-water navy is the most significant change to Australia’s strategic military position since the Second World War.”
If a war broke out between China and the US, Pyne said that “for the first time ever, China would be able to cut Australia off from the United States if they chose to do so and if the West couldn’t stop them because it now has a blue-water navy”.
A blue-water navy refers to a maritime force that can sustain operations far from a country’s shores.
Pyne said he did not believe a “small number of conventional submarines protecting the coastline of Australia” was in the country’s national interests.
“I think we need to have the capability to go well beyond that,” he said.
“It makes us a stronger and more important and useful ally. We want to be able to take submarines to North Asia and obviously right across the Indian and South Pacific Oceans.”
Asked to compare US President Donald Trump to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pyne said that “Trump is unpredictable, and a little garish for Australian tastes. I think that’s an understatement, but his instincts are basically right”.
“His delivery is not always sensational, but he won’t also be president forever,” he added.
Explaining why there was strong support for AUKUS across Washington’s political spectrum, Pyne said that “for the Americans, being able to have a submarine base in the Indian Ocean is a massive strategic advantage”.
While not officially described as such, Pyne said that HMAS Sterling navy base near Perth “will effectively be a US, UK, Australia submarine base”.
“Now, many people might not think that’s a good thing, but…it is a very important part of AUKUS for the United States because they want a submarine base in the Indian Ocean for obvious strategic purposes,” he said.
Former senator and submarine expert Rex Patrick countered that AUKUS was “a hugely risky program” that could leave Australia with a dangerous undersea capability gap if the US and UK fail to deliver the boats.
“We now have a program underway that involves $268 billion and the prospects of delivery are extremely low,” he said.
“Even if the first submarine was to be delivered in 2035, we would have had a situation where it has taken 26 years to procure one second-hand submarine for the navy.”
He called for more transparency from the government on where it would store the nuclear waste generated by AUKUS and how much this would cost.
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X, Facebook or email.From our partners
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