Labor under pressure to review AUKUS alliance, urging Australia to take notice

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The federal government is facing calls to conduct its own review into AUKUS, or even terminate the agreement, after the US announced it would examine the deal that would equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.

First reported by the Financial Times in the UK, the Pentagon later confirmed the 30-day review that will be helmed by top US defence official and AUKUS sceptic Elbridge Colby, the defence under secretary for policy.

The federal government has sought to downplay worries the review could spark a collapse of the deal, amid concern from some Opposition frontbenchers and US Democrats.

But others, including Labor figures, say Australia should conduct its own review or even step away from the deal. The agreement’s other key player, the United Kingdom, has conducted a review of its involvement in AUKUS, and endorsed it.

Defence Minister Richard Marles told ABC Radio on Thursday the US review was “not a surprise” and the government had been aware of it for some time.

While he did not guarantee Australia would receive nuclear-powered submarines from the US, he stressed he was confident.

“I’m very confident [AUKUS] is going to happen,” he said.

“We welcome [the review], it’s something which is perfectly natural for an incoming administration to do.”

The Opposition expressed alarm over the development, with the Coalition’s defence spokesperson Angus Taylor telling reporters on Thursday: “If AUKUS falls over, we will all pay a heavy price.”

“The Coalition stands ready to work with Labor to make sure AUKUS is a success,” Taylor said. “It needs to be strong and effective, but bipartisanship will not be a shield for in action.”

Earlier, Opposition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie said the US review was a “deeply concerning development” ahead of Albanese’s departure for the G7 summit in Canada on Sunday.

Albanese hopes to have a meeting with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the gathering in Alberta.

“Any undermining of this serious and substantial alliance between our two countries should be of grave concern to all of us,” McKenzie told Nine’s Today show.

Scott Morrison weighs in

Taylor said the review “came out of the blue” and that Marles and the government, who insist they were already aware, have “very serious questions … to answer”.

But former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison, who was in power when the deal was announced in 2021, also played down concerns, saying the review should “not be over-interpreted”.

He said it was a departmental review, not a policy decision, and that the focus of the examination, centred on US submarine production rates, was not new.

“This is a known and genuine challenge for the US industrial base,” he said.

Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor wearing suits and standing outside

Former prime minister Scott Morrison (left) with Angus Talyor in 2021. Morrison has played down concerns over the US’s AUKUS review. Source: AAP

Morrison said: “Now is the time for Australia to make the case again. We have a good case to make in both our own interests and those of our AUKUS partners, especially in the US.”

Renewed criticism of AUKUS deal

Labor luminary and former prime minister Paul Keating, who is a long-standing critic of AUKUS, said the review “might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself”.

He said the Pentagon was “subjecting the deal to the kind of scrutiny that should have been applied to AUKUS in the first instance”.

“The review makes clear that America keeps its national interests uppermost. But the concomitant question is: why has Australia failed to do the same?” Keating said in a statement.

He said never had an Australian government adopted such a “poorly conceived defence procurement program”, labelling it a deal that had been: “Scribbled on the back of an envelope by Scott Morrison, along with the vacuous British blowhard [former UK prime minister] Boris Johnson and the confused President, Joe Biden — put together on an English beach, a world away from where Australia’s strategic interests primarily lie.”

“The calling of the Pentagon review should be the catalyst for the government to get on with the job of forging a relevant, distinctly Australian path for the country’s national security, rather than being dragged along on the coat tails of a fading Atlantic empire,” Keating said.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said it was “not a surprise” the US was planning a review into AUKUS. Source: AAP / James Ross

Former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr, who also served as foreign minister under the Gillard and Rudd governments, said: “the best course” of action was for the US and Australia to terminate the AUKUS agreement.

“Scott Morrison, so recently ennobled, has left an awful legacy that sacrifices other defence options and will see us love sovereign sub capacity,” Carr wrote on X.

Former Labor senator Doug Cameron, who is part of the Labor Against War group, said in a statement: “It’s high time the Labor government had the courage to initiate an independent review to ensure the Australian people aren’t being taken to the cleaners while dragged into US war planning.”

In the wake of the US and UK conducting reviews into the agreement, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia should “wake up” and conduct its own review.

“Australia, which has the most at stake, has no review,” he wrote on X. “Our parliament to date has been the least curious and least informed.”

Greens defence spokesperson David Shoebridge said the US’ review showed the “sinking” AUKUS deal “makes Australia a junior partner in America’s military strategy, not an equal ally”.

“We need an independent defence and foreign policy, that does not require us to bend our will and shovel wealth to an increasingly erratic and reckless Trump USA,” he said.

US Democrats raise concerns

Co-chair of the Friends of Australia Caucus, US Congressman Joe Courtney, warned against dumping the AUKUS deal.

“To walk away from all the sunk costs invested by our two closest allies — Australia and the United Kingdom — will have far-reaching ramifications on our trustworthiness on the global stage,” he said.

A woman wearing a red top and glasses inside.

US Democrat senator Jeanne Shaheen said the US’ reputation would be tarnished if AUKUS was scrapped. Source: Getty / Bloomberg/Pete Kiehart

US senator Jeanne Shaheen, who sits on the Senate foreign relations committee, said news of the review would be “met with cheers in Beijing”, which she said is “celebrating America’s global pullback and … strained ties with allies”.

“Scrapping this partnership would further tarnish America’s reputation and raise more questions among our closest defence partners about our reliability,” she said in a statement.

“And at a moment when we face mounting threats from the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and Russia, we should be encouraging our partners to raise their defence spending and partnering with them on the latest technologies — not doing the opposite.”

What is AUKUS?

The agreement was designed to eventually support a shipbuilding industry in Australia to construct the highly complex nuclear-powered submarines using a UK design and technology shared between the three countries.

But in the 15 years preceding that, the US was set to provide at least three Virginia-class submarines, despite its own domestic manufacturing industry being under pressure.

Australia’s agreement on AUKUS included significant investment in the American production line, and has been considered advantageous to the US.

Australian online newspaper The Nightly reported that Colby, who will oversee the US’ review, previously told the publication he would’ve been sceptical if he had to sign off on the deal, saying the benefits and viability were “questionable” because it would lead to more submarines collectively in 10 to 20 years time — too late to meet heightened risks within this decade.

— With reporting by the Australian Associated Press