Guardian Essential report: power v poise
At the electoral crossroads, Guardian Australia's political reporter Krishani Dhanji talks to Essential Media's executive director Peter Lewis about what risks and rewards await Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese as they gamble over the projection of strong v steady leadership to win the hearts and minds of Australian voters. Plus: who would people most want to have a beer with?
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Sky News
4 hours ago
- Sky News
Trump's administration reviews AUKUS submarine deal with Britain and Australia
The US has launched a formal review of the multi-billion pound AUKUS submarine deal with the UK and Australia. The defence pact, which is developing a new fleet of nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines for the UK and Australia, was agreed under Joe Biden 's administration in 2021. The alliance, which also covers collaboration on other advanced technologies, is seen as an attempt to counter the influence of China. But Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's top policy advisor, is among vocal sceptics in Donald Trump 's administration. "We are reviewing AUKUS as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the President's America First agenda," a US official said. "Any changes to the administration's approach for AUKUS will be communicated through official channels, when appropriate." AUKUS envisages Australia acquiring up to five US Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from 2032 before the UK and Australia design and build a new class of submarine with US assistance. Australia's defence minister Richard Marles said on Thursday he was confident the pact would still go ahead and his government would work closely with the US while Mr Trump's administration conducts a review. "This is a multi-decade plan. There will be governments that come and go and I think whenever we see a new government, a review of this kind is going to be something which will be undertaken," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It comes ahead of Mr Trump's first expected meeting with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada. Security allies will discuss a request from Washington for Australia to increase defence spending from 2% to 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). AUKUS is at the centre of the UK's planned expansion of its submarine fleet, with up to 12 attack submarines expected to be built for the Royal Navy. The deal is said to be worth more than £175bn. When it was signed, all three countries - the US, UK and Australia - had different leaders. In May, the US president's new ambassador, Warren Stephens, used his first public speech to back the partnership, highlighting how "vital the US-UK relationship is to our countries and to the world". A UK government spokesperson said: "AUKUS is a landmark security and defence partnership with two of our closest allies. "It is one of the most strategically important partnerships in decades, supporting peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic, while also delivering jobs and economic growth in communities across all three nations."
NBC News
6 hours ago
- NBC News
Australia confident U.S. will proceed with AUKUS submarine deal after review
SYDNEY — Australia 's defense minister said Thursday he was confident that the AUKUS submarine pact with the United States and Britain would proceed, and that his government would work closely with the U.S. while the Trump administration conducted a formal review. Australia in 2023 committed to spend 368 billion Australian dollars ($239 billion) over three decades on AUKUS, the country's biggest ever defense project with the U.S. and Britain, to acquire and build nuclear-powered submarines. A Pentagon official said the administration was reviewing AUKUS to ensure it was 'aligned with the President's America First agenda' on the eve of expected talks between President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. In an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio interview, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said AUKUS was in the strategic interests of all three countries and that the new review of the deal signed in 2021 when Joe Biden was the U.S. president was not a surprise. 'I am very confident this is going to happen,' he said of AUKUS, which would give Australia nuclear-powered submarines. 'This is a multi-decade plan. There will be governments that come and go and I think whenever we see a new government, a review of this kind is going to be something which will be undertaken,' Marles told the ABC. Albanese is expected to meet Trump for the first time next week on the sidelines of the Group of 7 meeting in Canada, where the security allies will discuss a request from Washington for Australia to increase defense spending from 2% to 3.5% of gross domestic product. Albanese has said defense spending would rise to 2.3% and has declined to commit to the U.S. target. The opposition Liberal party on Thursday pressed Albanese to increase defense spending. Under AUKUS, Australia was scheduled to make a $2 billion payment in 2025 to the U.S. to help boost its submarine shipyards and speed up lagging production rates of Virginia-class submarines to allow the sale of up to three U.S. submarines to Australia starting in 2032. The first $500 million payment was made when Marles met with his U.S. counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in February. The Pentagon's top policy adviser Elbridge Colby, who has previously expressed concern that the U.S. would lose submarines to Australia at a critical time for military deterrence against China, will be a key figure in the review, examining the production rate of Virginia-class submarines, Marles said. 'It is important that those production and sustainment rates are improved,' he added. AUKUS would grow the U.S. and Australian defense industries and generate thousands of manufacturing jobs, Marles said in a statement. John Lee, an Australian Indo-Pacific expert at Washington's conservative Hudson Institute think tank, said the Pentagon review was 'primarily an audit of American capability' and whether it can afford to sell up to five nuclear-powered submarines when it is not meeting its own production targets. 'Relatedly, the low Australian defense spending and ambiguity as to how it might contribute to a Taiwan contingency is also a factor,' Lee said. John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former senior Pentagon official, told a Lowy Institute seminar in Sydney on Thursday there is a perception in Washington that 'the Albanese government has been supportive of AUKUS but not really leaning in on AUKUS,' and that defense spending is part of this. Under the multi-stage pact, four U.S.-commanded Virginia submarines will be hosted at a Western Australian navy base on the Indian Ocean starting in 2027, which a senior U.S. Navy commander told Congress in April gives the U.S. a 'straight shot to the South China Sea.' Albanese wants to buy three Virginia submarines starting in 2032 to bring its submarine force under Australian command. Britain and Australia will jointly build a new AUKUS-class submarine that is expected to come into service starting in 2040. Following a recent defense review, Britain said it would boost spending on its attack submarine fleet under AUKUS. Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who struck the AUKUS deal with Biden, said Thursday that Australia should 'make the case again' for the treaty.
Spectator
10 hours ago
- Spectator
Could Donald Trump scrap Aukus?
America's policy undersecretary of defence, Elbridge Colby, is one of the brightest brains in Donald Trump's administration. Having served in the first Trump presidency, Colby has an outstanding reputation as a defence and strategic thinker. He is also, however, very much aligned with Trump's America First thinking in respect of foreign policy, and the United States' relationship with her allies. That would be a strategic disaster for Australia and Britain In tasking Colby on Wednesday with reviewing the Aukus nuclear submarine-centred strategic partnership between the US, the UK and Australia, the president sends a clear message to Britain and Australia: Aukus is part of his inheritance from Joe Biden, and its future therefore is far from assured. In a media statement, the Pentagon said: 'The department is reviewing Aukus as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the president's America First agenda. As (Defense) Secretary (Pete) Hegseth has made clear, this means ensuring the highest readiness of our service members, that allies step up fully to do their part for collective defence, and that the defence industrial base is meeting our needs. This review will ensure the initiative meets these common sense, America First criteria.' Colby himself has been ambivalent about Aukus ever since it was established by Biden, and then Australian and British prime ministers, Scott Morrison and Rishi Sunak, in 2021. Addressing a Policy Exchange forum last year, Colby said he was 'quite sceptical' about the Aukus pact, and questioned its viability and ultimate benefits. In a more recent interview with the Australian newspaper, Colby said Aukus's Pillar 1 – the nuclear submarine programme under which Australia would purchase several Virginia-class boats, pending the acquisition of new generation UK-Australian Acute-class submarines – is 'very problematic'. He did say, however, that Pillar 2 – the sharing of military intelligence and technical know-how between the partners – 'is great, no problem'. Colby's long-standing concern is the US's ability to take on China if it ever comes to conflict in the Asia-Pacific, especially over Taiwan. 'How are we supposed to give away nuclear attack submarines in the years of the window of potential conflict with China?' he told the Australian. 'A nuclear attack submarine is the most important asset for a western Pacific fight, for Taiwan, conventionally. But we don't have enough, and we're not going to have enough.' If this is the starting position for Colby's review, its scepticism contradicts the steadfast commitment to Aukus from the current Australian and British Labour governments. Indeed, Britain's latest Strategic Defence Review places high priority on the Aukus partnership as an integral element of British strategic and force planning. Given Colby's previous form on Aukus, the review may well recommend scaling back or discontinuing the nuclear submarine Aukus pillar. But that would be a strategic disaster for Australia and Britain, let alone for Colby's own strategic vision, outlined in his 2021 book, of an 'anti-hegemonic coalition to contain the military ambitions of China', in which he specifically envisioned Australia. Arguably, it doesn't matter which country mans the attack nuclear submarines assigned to the Asia-Pacific theatre, as long as the boats are there. But will Colby see it that way? In Australia, however, the administration's announcement immediately set a cat amongst the pigeons. Currently, Australia spends just over two per cent of GDP on defence, and the Trump administration, including Colby, is pressuring on Australia to do far more. This month, Hegseth, told his Australian counterpart that Australia should be committing at least 3.5 per cent of GDP to ensure not just Aukus, but that her fighting personnel and ageing military hardware are fit for purpose and contributing commensurately to the Western alliance. After his face-to-face meeting with Hegseth, Australian defence minister Richard Marles seemed open to the suggestion. His prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is not. In his first major media appearance since his thumping election win a month ago, Albanese was asked whether the US could renege on supplying nuclear submarines to Australia if spending is deemed inadequate. 'Well, I think Australia should decide on what we spend on Australia's defence. Simple as that', Albanese replied. It hasn't escaped notice here that the Pentagon announced its Aukus review less than 48 hours after Albanese made his declaration, and just days before the Australian prime minister is expected to have his first personal meeting with Trump at the G7 Leaders' Summit in Canada. That meeting, carrying the risk of a public Trump rebuke, surely will be dreaded by Albanese. Dealing with the Americans' insistence on a near-doubling of Australia's defence investment is politically diabolical for Albanese. He has just won re-election on a manifesto promising huge additional social investments, especially in Australia's version of the NHS and a fiscally ravenous National Disability Insurance Scheme. Albanese must keep his left-wing support base onside by expanding already huge public investments and subsidies in pursuing his government's ideological Net Zero and 100 per cent renewable energy goals. All that on top of a burgeoning national debt. To achieve Nato's GDP defence spending target of 3 per cent, let alone Hegseth's 3.5, something has to give. Albanese cannot deliver both massive social spending and vast defence outlays: to keep the Americans happy, and justify the continuation of both Aukus pillars, he will need to either prove himself a Bismarck-calibre statesman, or risk electoral wrath if he retreats on his domestic spending promises, and cuts existing programmes across his government, to afford adequate defence spending headroom. Australia needs America to be a strong ally in our troubled region, but the United States needs steadfast allies like Australia and Britain. Now the administration's scepticism about Aukus's value to the US is officially on the table, with a review entrusted to its biggest Aukus sceptic in Elbridge Colby, Australia and Britain must justify why all aspects of the partnership are a worthwhile investment with them, as America's partners, committed to playing their part in full. How well they do it will be a measure of their political and diplomatic competence.
