Labor’s AUKUS-trated Conference denies debate on key issues

Written by: Nick G. on 24 July 2026

 

(CFMEU life member Allen Harris addresses the crowd - photo Supplied)

Approximately 150 people rallied outside the ALP National Conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre this morning.

It was a work day, so many of the participants were retirees with varying degrees of hirsute grey. Fearing their revolutionary intentions, the police had their own greys in attendance – a phalanx of horses known in SA as the “police greys”.

As delegates entered the Convention Centre, many stopped to greet picketers and express solidarity with them, taking leaflets from various organisations. Others refused to acknowledge the picketers, knowing that they were about to role-play a stage-managed event that is so controlled by Labor heavies that there is no chance to debate key issues such as AUKUS.

Extinction Rebellion members provided a theatrical touch with about twenty dressed in orange hazmat gear with anti-AUKUS slogans on their backs, a loud warning alarm directed at the dangers of war, and a dollar-decorated inflatable green sub.

(Photo supplied)

The rally had been called by the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN), which coincidentally has its own national conference in Adelaide this weekend.

Under the heading “It’s time to break free from the US”, various speakers addressed the crowd. They included US journalist and film-maker Abby Martin, currently touring with her film “The Earth’s Greatest Enemy”; Electrical Trades Union national secretary Michael Wright, who reiterated the ETU’s opposition to nuclear energy and AUKUS; NSW South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris, who explained US plans to turn Pt Kembla into a major US naval base; lifetime CFMEU SA Branch member Allen Harris, who began by expressing solidarity with the ETU’s current battle with BHP, and spoke of all the social initiatives that could be supported with the billions wasted on AUKUS; and Labor Against War’s Marcus Strom who condemned AUKUS and spoke of ALP members’ opposition to it.

The picket at the ALP National Conference comes a week after a series of excellent submissions to the Adelaide Hearing of the Public Inquiry into AUKUS. All submissions can be found by scrolling down on the Inquiry home page here: AUKUS Public Inquiry

 

Army trains to protect AUKUS

Written by: (Contributed) on 16 June 2026

 

(Above: The US puppets here are planning to curtail people’s protests against AUKUS. Photo: Matt Hkrak, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

A statement issued in a defence report about Defence Force Aid to the Civil Authority has carried all the hallmarks of moves in Canberra to consider military deployments into Australian civil society. (1) While the main heading of the report provided concern about domestic terrorism following the Bondi shootings, reference to 'no-warning exercises involving whole-city terrorism', would tend to convey widespread insurrection, and the move toward military personnel conducting counter-insurgency and counter-intelligence operations in Australian society. (2) 

The report follows revelations in January of a new national command within the Australian Federal Police centred on security for the AUKUS nuclear submarine project. The AUKUS Command includes public order management (see: Revealed: Australia’s secret Anti-Protest Force for US Department of War - Michael West )

The report also refers to 'a potential use of force … envisaged and … containment of a large-area terrorist site', which would tend to indicate areas of Australia being cordoned off with the use of military-style barriers and manned checkpoints to restrict access and egress for the general population. (3)

The plan would appear to also include Defence personnel being integrated into 'planning and operational capabilities for homeland security … alongside … the counter-terrorism relationship that exists between the ADF and different police forces … despite the increased capabilities of police tactical units'. (4)

We have previously reported on Australian soldiers training for Australian civil conflicts (see: Vanguard: Australian soldiers training for civil conflicts ).

More recently, on June 11, the City of Port Adelaide Enfield issued a notice to residents that the Australian Army would be carrying out Exercise Rhino Resolve on the weekend, then two days away, at Osborne, Edinburgh, and Woodside. “The training helps Army personnel to be prepared to respond to a domestic security situation, defend Australia’s territory, and protect citizens during a response.”

The Council notice continued: “During the exercise, you may notice more military activity than usual in the area. This could include military vehicles coming in and out of Defence sites on the peninsula, and soldiers moving around within Defence areas wearing body armour, helmets, and carrying weapons. Civilian “role players” will also be interacting with soldiers as part of the training scenario.

“Some soldiers may carry weapons using blank ammunition for training purposes. There will be no live ammunition used at any time, and no blank ammunition will be fired within the Osborne Naval Shipyard.”

The exercise sets a dangerous precedent for Australia where the military apparatus overrides civilian life.  As we said in our article on Australian soldiers training for civil conflicts, we need to remember the military definition of “protection” when we read reports of ADF personnel practicing its implementation.

That is particularly relevant when the Army is carrying out training exercises in the vicinity of the submarine shipyard at Osborne.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise to find the recent Canberra defence report also stated the Australian military 'has much to contribute to security at home … with … intelligence'. (5) Examples from the previous Cold War, however, have provided chilling pictures of wholesale abuse of democratic processes and widespread repression, totally politically unaccountable at the time. The profiling of whole subject populations, by the US, including that of allies and perceived adversaries, has been well recorded in declassified documents. (6)   

The recent political scandal in Tasmania where a Hobart City Councillor was suspended following their use of a decades-old ASIO file about the parents of Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds 'in an attempt to cause political harm', is evidence of the practice being used in Cold War Australia. (7) The availability of the supposedly secret file also remains a matter for consideration with uses and abuses of power inside the present-day corridors of power. Reynolds is the daughter of historian Henry Reynolds and former Queensland ALP senator Margaret Reynolds, both well-known for their advocacy of Australian First People's rights to self-determination, and for their opposition to AUKUS.

 

It should, therefore, also come as no surprise to find the Defence Force report was totally dismissive of the Australian civil liberties lobby. The military had assessed the lobby as having 'raised concerns about the dangers of excessive involvement by our armed forces in domestic security, especially where it involves the use of force, (but) this appears to be an elite debate that does not resonate with the public'. (8) 

This is not the Australia our people want to live in.

It demonstrates the extent to which the US and their lap dogs in Australia will go in their futile attempt to maintain US global hegemony. AUKUS is exactly about that - not Australia's defence and security - and the warmongers are taking no chances of it being threatened by the community. This is what they really mean by "a domestic security situation".

1.     How ADF could help prevent Bondi 2.0 terror attack, The Defence Report Supplement, Australian, 2 June 2026, column 3.  
2.     Ibid., column 7.
3.     Ibid., column 3.
4.     Ibid., Columns 3, 7 and 8.
5.   Defence Report, Australian, op.cit., column 5.
6.   See: Secret Army's war on the left, The Observer (London), 18 November 1990; and Lost History: Project X., The Consortium Magazine, 31 March 1997; and, Army's Project X had wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997; and, Counter Insurgency Operations, US Army Report: 19960709 052.
7.   See: Councillor barred for ASIO file attack, Australian, 23 April 2026.
8.   Defence Report, Australian, op.cit., column 8.

Anti-War Protestors Invade Premier Malinauskas' Electoral Office

 Written by: Max O. on 9 March 2026

 

(Photo supplied)

Campaigning in the South Australian 2026 state election is well underway. Anti-war protestors have their own thoughts on what should be on the campaign agenda. They decided to focus on a number of electoral seats that host industrial military complexes in Adelaide/Kaurna Yerta.

Premier Malinauskas, who holds the seat of Croydon, is also the Minister for Defence and Space Industries. Lucy Hood, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, whose seat of Adelaide hosts Lot 14—a hub that houses the Australian Space Agency and a number of other military research-related corporations and start-ups—Boeing Defence, and the Defence SA office in the CBD.

On 4th March, anti-war protestors from Disrupt Arms Traders, IPAN-SA (Independent & Peaceful Australia Network - South Australia), and PACOA (Port Adelaide Community Opposes AUKUS) took their no-war message to the electoral offices of Malinauskas and Hood.

Just before these campaigners occupied the office foyers, they forewarned the media of their intentions. Half of the protestors entered the building while the other half stood outside displaying banners to passing traffic.

Once inside Premier Malinauskas' office foyer, they delivered a letter opposing the transformation of South Australia into a war base to serve US imperialism's aggression in East Asia. They then proceeded to occupy the foyer, chanting anti-war slogans and criticising the premier's fawning over US weapons corporations to the staff.

Channel 7 TV arrived at Malinauskas' office and interviewed a representative of the protestors, who pointed out the dangers of AUKUS and the numerous US and UK weapons manufacturers in the state, such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and BAE. The protest was televised that night on the evening news (see our Facebook page for March 5).

Afterwards, the anti-war protestors repeated the action at Lucy Hood's office in Prospect. This action caught the Labor Party and electoral staff off guard, leaving them somewhat flummoxed and embarrassed to have to deal with the protestors.

Overseas war profiteers in South Australia have become one of the biggest industries in the state. The anti-war protestors threatened to repeat this kind of action at other electoral offices in the future.

Malinauskas’ key agency is Defence SA, which rolls out the red carpet to weapons makers. He wants a weapons export economy, no matter what it takes and what gets destroyed as a result of the weapons exported from South Australia.

Exporting parts for F35s, guided missiles, and cyber warfare technology—used to destroy and kill—is all fine according to "Weapons Pete." Hey, he’ll even throw in a government grant or two to help global weapons makers. As long as there’s a shiny photo opportunity, he’ll be there.

Malinauskas' obsession with AUKUS puts him on a par with Marles and Albanese. When the US directs, they jump. Malinauskas is so obsessed with AUKUS that he has given global arms dealers access to our entire education system to spread their propaganda to youngsters in our schools.

The AUKUS pork-barrel rolls on…

 Written by: Nick G. on 15 February 2026

 

The announcement today (February 15) of a $30 billion federal government release of funds to South Australia for AUKUS expansion comes just five weeks before the 21 March SA State election.

There is no doubt that Malinauskas is a popular SA Premier.  He has provided enough popular entertainment in the shape of LIV golf (being played today), the AFL Gather Round and motor racing championships, to supply local media with endless promotional photos and TV spots.

But he has not had it all his own way. His last election win came with a pledge to solve the ambulance ramping crisis. Yet ambulances continue to be ramped outside hospitals. 

The figures for last November show that patients spent 3,422 hours waiting in ambulances for emergency care during that month.
That brings the total number of hours lost on the ramp during 2025 to 48,466 hours - already a historic high with a month still to go. For comparison, patients spent 47,380 hours waiting on the ramp in 2024 and 40,474 hours in 2023.

SA is gripped in the national housing crisis. Despite claims that it is building more houses than ever, rents are increasing and so are housing costs. Residential property sales recorded throughout 2025 have shown a mere 5.22 per cent of all sales in metropolitan Adelaide were in the sub-$500,000 price bracket. Median house prices in December 2025 rose a massive 14.5 per cent increase compared to the December 2024 quarter.  No-one’s wages have gone up that much.

The Premier also lifted the heavy rock of his call for Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah to be dropped from the Adelaide Writer’s Week program. That rock fell from his grasp onto his own toes when 200 Writer’s Week participants withdrew in protest, causing the much-loved festival to be cancelled.

So Malinauskas does seem to have lost some of his gloss. 

The $30 billion figure appears to have been plucked from the air.  There will be an immediate $3.9 billion “down-payment” with the rest to come online across the 30 years of the project. However, there has been no reliable costing of the various stages of the project.

And despite all evidence to the contrary from the US Congressional Research Service, and a former UK Navy Chief calling from withdrawal from AUKUS because Britain is “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures pushed it to the brink, Albanese, Marles and Malinauskas continue to believe that AUKUS will deliver on its promises.

There is no doubt that public spending on health, housing, education, regional roads and so on, is being sacrificed  on the AUKUS altar. At an average cost of $30 million a day across the 30 years of the project, our lifestyle is being sacrificed to a dream…or nightmare!

AUKUS must be stopped now.

We must come out from under the stranglehold of the US empire.

Workers should not hold their breaths waiting for the so-called AUKUS “jobs bonanza”.

Richard “Hiroo Onada” Marles

 Written by: Nick G. on 11 February 2026

 

We reproduce without comment a ten-minute transcript of part of an Australia Pacific Defence Reporter podcast number 127. The APDR is an online journal of news about military contracts, personnel appointments and military technology. The podcast is by its editor, Kym Bergmann, who has worked for, and with, some of the more significant armaments industries. He does not oppose the US-Australia Alliance, but is concerned about Australian subservience within the Alliance. (For a previous excerpt from a Bergmann podcast, see here: AC+2023.pdf pages 26-7) - eds

Hiroo Onada was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps and in certain circles he is famous because he was the last Japanese soldier to surrender in the 2nd World War, which he did in 1974, almost 29 years after the war had officially ended. He hid out in the jungles of the Philippines, living off the land, and for all that time killing the occasional citizens. 

Now, 2nd Lieutenant Onada was so convinced of the invincibility of Japan that he refused to accept reality and believed all of the information he received about Japan’s surrender was enemy propaganda, and he was having absolutely none of it. 

As I say, he kept that up for 29 years, and in fact, once he had been located by a Japanese adventurer, the only way he was finally convinced to give up was when the Japanese government sent his former commanding officer to the Philippines to order him to surrender.

And why am I telling you this story?

 

It’s because our Defence Minister Richard Marles and his total devotion to AUKUS means he is the spiritual heir of 2nd Lieutenant Hiroo Onada.

No matter what evidence he is presented with, he can only continue to bleat and insist AUKUS “is on track”, and as I predicted previously, he repeats that phrase repeated by that greatest monster Donald Trump that “everything is going full steam ahead”.

He was prompted to say this because there was a burst of publicity prompted by yet another report by the Congressional Research Service which posed a number of scenarios and not for the first time – that is the job of the CRS – about Australia not receiving Virginia-class submarines, either second-hand or new, and Australia using that money for other capabilities, such as B-21 long-range bombers.

Now, the Congressional Research Service is very high, very authoritative, and it has excellent contacts in the US government, and so when they produce a report like this, it is taken very seriously. It is not the sort of thing that should be dismissed, yet as I said in a previous podcast, this government, and the Coalition were no better – they have no time for think-tanks, academia, the media or the opinion of retired military people.

The Department has become entirely self-referential, as once they have collectively made up their minds about something, they are not in the slightest interested in alternative opinions or alternative views.

AUKUS: “Full steam ahead” to nowhere?

 Written by: Nick G. on 11 December 2025

 

US con artists Pete Hegseth (Minister for War) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meeting with Australian puppets Penny Wong and Richard Marles, have reiterated Trump’s assurances that AUKUS is “full steam ahead”.

The comments were made at the annual AUSMIN meeting held in Washington on December 8.

The US has recently completed a review of the AUKUS arrangements, a copy of which has gone to their agent of influence Marles, but which has not been made public.

The review has apparently cleared the AUKUS arrangements as being consistent with US national interests, but we are no clearer about how the US intends to supply Australia with a couple of second-hand subs when it cannot yet guarantee a production rate that meets its own supply needs, let alone those of Australia.

Compounding the uncertainty about AUKUS was a statement on December 6 by a former Chief of the British Royal Navy that Britain was “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures had pushed it to the brink.

Rear Admiral Philip Mathias called for Britain to pull out of the multi-billion AUKUS defence deal with America and Australia to build 12 new nuclear submarines.

He said the AUKUS programme should be “cancelled now”.

Toadying up to their US masters, Australian politicians are set to send another gratis payment of $1 billion to try and pump-prime the ailing US submarine program. This is in addition to previous payments of $1.6 billion and is part of a promised $4.6 billion of non-refundable payments to US submarine builders.
If anything about AUKUS is “full steam ahead”, it is the handing over of Australian billions of dollars to the US with no guaranteed outcomes. 

Meanwhile, Australia is to have its own “review” of AUKUS, conducted by a committee of 7 politicians and 6 others.  As Dr Albert Palazzo, former director of war studies for the Australian Army, and adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales said on the 7am podcast, they will all be AUKUS loyalists and “it will not be a review committee but a rubber stamp committee.”

The demand for a genuine Australian independence is growing.

There is no place for the grovelling subservience of the US loyalists in Canberra.

Snap SA protest targets arms manufacturers

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 December 2025

 

On Monday December 8, a protest organised by Disrupt Arms Traders and supported by Qakers, IPAN-SA and Port Adelaide Community Opposing AUKUS (PACOA), targeted the offices of SA Defence and the SA Premier MalinAUKUS.

For a protest in working hours, called at short notice, and attended by mainly retired persons, it was quite effective.

The protest came days after the announcement by the SA Premier, the federal minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, and representatives of US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, that a new facility, built at Pt Wakefield, will be used for the assembly of missiles.

The facility was designed and built by Indigenous construction company Intract Australia in a move aimed to strengthen ties between First Peoples and the pro-US Australian military.

It will be owned by the Department of Defence and assemble parts imported from the US.

It will be the only facility in the world outside of the Lockheed Martin facility in Camden, Arkansas to produce the company’s Guided Missile Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles.

It is yet another step in making the SA economy dependent on foreign armaments producers – a far cry from the days when SA manufacturers produced agricultural machinery, various white goods (fridges, washing machines etc), and cars.

At the offices of SA Defence, the protesters organised into two groups: one going inside to hand deliver a letter condemning the MalinAUKUS government, while the other stayed outside, chanting slogans and displaying banners to passer-byers and traffic.

They then re-assembled outside the electoral office of the SA Premier, displaying banners and chanting slogans in opposition to the drive to war. Two people went inside to speak to MalinAUKUS, but he was not there, so they had to content themselves with passing on messages through his staff.

AUKUS and the Australian American Leadership Dialogue

 Written by: Nick G. on 14 August 2025

 

The Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD) currently meeting in Adelaide has brought two US congressmen to Australia to try and breathe life into the ailing AUKUS arrangements.

The AALD was established in 1992 by comprador capitalist Phil Scanlon as a “private diplomatic initiative” bringing together Australian and US leaders from a range of backgrounds.

Scanlon is currently working as adviser to London-based Greater Pacific Capital and New York-based P3 Global Management. From 2009 to 2013, he held the role of Australian Consul General in New York. He has been on the Business Council of Australia and spent more than three decades as a Governor of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.

Although promoting itself as an NGO, the AALD’s principal partner is the Australian Government’s Department of Defence. Other principal partners are multinational arms manufacturers Thales, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, as well as Deakin and Adelaide Universities, BHP and Doordash.

The two congressmen are both tied to US military expansion. The first, Republican Trent Kelly is the House Seapower and Projection Forces sub-committee chairperson.  His electorate includes a shipyard, as does the electorate of his Democrat partner in crime Joe Courtney. In his case it is a nuclear submarine shipyard at Groton, Connecticut.

Accompanied by SA Premier Malin-AUKUS, the two toured the Osborne shipyards 

Courtney, who is also a member of the Seapower and Projection Forces sub-committee of Congress, waxed lyrical about the “eye-watering investment that is going on in the shipbuilding sector here in Australia.”

It was not reported whether he also praised the eye-watering and non-refundable hundreds of millions of dollars that Australia has gifted the US for the sake of pump-priming shipyards like Groton which have labour shortages, supply chain problems and are currently running well behind schedule to produce enough nuclear submarines for the US, let alone fulfilling the AUKUS requirement to supply up to three US nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

Courtney praised the collaboration between Adelaide and Connecticut universities on “cutting-edge work for the US Navy in terms of submarines and unmanned vessels…all kinds of stuff we can’t really talk about publicly.”

Malin-AUKUS parroted the pro-AUKUS spin emanating from the two congressmen, ignoring the Australian people’s wish for greater independence from US imperialism, and boasting that SA was “positioning itself as a security and technology partner of choice” for the US war machine.

The only bilateral US-Australian partnership that should be pursued is that between the two peoples, based on non-interference in each other’s affairs and a common commitment to opposing imperialism and building socialist unity. Both peoples would much prefer that eye-watering amounts were spent on education, health, housing and infrastructure.

Gifting another $800 million to AUKUS “partners”

Written by: Nick G. on 24 July 2025

 

Above: Fremantle, April 2025

PM Albanese yesterday confirmed another non-refundable gift of $800 million to help pump-prime the ailing shipyards of our AUKUS “partners”, the US and British imperialists.

Together with an earlier gift of the same amount, it means that $1.6 billion of our money has been poured into the AUKUS black hole. More is to come.

It is no coincidence that the additional payment has been made as the US prepares to review AUKUS to ensure it supports Trump’s America First agenda. As part of the arrangement with the US, a President can cancel AUKUS if it results in any diminution of US war capacity.

With the current production rate, America will struggle to produce enough boats to meet its needs, let alone make another three for Australia.

The latest payment also comes just days after Albanese met with Xi Jinping, a gesture that had US opinion-makers (and some in Australia) suggesting that Albo was straying from the subservience required under the US Alliance.

It also comes in the wake of a disgusting display of backside-licking by Australian Ambassador to the US, and former Labor PM Kevin Rudd, who spoke effusively of his personal relation with Elbridge ‘Bridge’ Colby who will run the US AUKUS review. 

“Bridge has been around my place a lot of times, and so we have known each other for a long period of time, and that’s why I’m confident, quite apart from the mature relationship within our two defence establishments ... that we’ll work our way through this stuff,” he said.

However, others are not so confident, and some are even hoping ‘Bridge’ will burn the deal altogether.

Peter Varghese, a longtime Australian diplomat who ended his career in 2016 after running the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)  for PM John Howard as permanent secretary, wrote in an op-ed piece for the Australian Financial Review, “I hope Elbridge Colby sinks AUKUS for Australia. The US might yet save us from ourselves by adding conditions to the nuclear submarine agreement that no Australian government could accept.”

Those conditions focussed on a request from the US that Australia commit to the US side in any war with China over its province Taiwan.

Albert Palazzo, who was the longtime director of war studies for the Australian Army, argued in a mid-June discussion of AUKUS that Colby’s review, “should be welcomed by all Australians as an opportunity for the Albanese government to scrap the agreement and wean itself off US dependency.” Palazzo concluded his recent piece saying that, “AUKUS remains an affront to Australian sovereignty.”

We, and a good many others, have been opposed to AUKUS from the outset. But that opposition has grown in recent times. All opposition is welcome, no matter from whom or how early or lately it is expressed.

Our opposition is based on our fight for an anti-imperialist Australian independence and socialism. 

This is the only future for Australia if it is to avoid war, and end the injustice and inequity of capitalism.

AUKUS reviews expose Australia’s secondary status

 Written by: Nick G. on 13 June 2025

 

The Trump Administration has just announced a 30-day review of the AUKUS arrangements to make sure that they comply with Trump’s “America First” policy.

The announcement comes just days after Albanese publicly differed with US Defense Secretary Hegseth’s demand that we increase “defence” expenditure.

It is a signal to Albanese of US displeasure with Australia having the gall to think, even in a very hesitant and half-hearted way, that it should have the right to decide things for itself.

It really does expose how Australia, which is not a Third World country, but an advanced capitalist country, is quite secondary in importance and influence to the major powers.

The US joins the UK in conducting a review into AUKUS. Australia timidly refuses to conduct a review, believing that whatever happens, “she’ll be right”. So, the two beneficiaries of the arrangements are enquiring into AUKUS, but the country that has to pay for it – at an average of $30 million a day for the next 30 years – is not prepared to conduct its own enquiry.

The British House of Commons announced on April 2, 2025 a two-month public enquiry into AUKUS. The first submissions were published in early June.

In the meantime, the UK announced on June 2, 2025 its Strategic Defence Review. Among its 62 recommendations – all since adopted by PM Sir Keir Starmer – was that the UK would build for itself up to 12 SSN-AUKUS class submarines, with additional funding to production sites to produce one SSN-AUKUS submarine every 18 months.

This sounds very ambitious given a spate of reports suggesting that UK submarine production always runs behind schedule and is beset with workforce shortages.

The US enquiry, announced days ago, will be led by Undersecretary of Defense Policy Elbridge Colby. He said on March 6 that the US commitment to the AUKUS arrangements was “conditional on U.S. industry building enough attack boats to meet domestic needs first”.

Both the US and UK have “opt-out” clauses in the AUKUS arrangements and are not required to refund any of the billions (nearly $5 billion each) that Australia has committed to giving them in order to pump-prime their industries. These amounts are just gift donations - we are not buying anything with them.

It should be no surprise that Australia is at the beck and call of the imperialists controlling AUKUS.

Scott Morrison’s original AUKUS arrangement was for the sharing of technology that would enable Australia to build its own nuclear-powered submarines. It was not taken to parliament for debate.

After sleeping on the matter overnight, and not consulting his Cabinet colleagues, new Labor PM Anthony Albanese was persuaded to incorporate into the AUKUS agreement a plan to purchase three and possibly five US Virginia-class submarines. Parliament  - supposedly representing the voice of the people in a bourgeois democracy – had no say.

This stupid arrangement, however, was conditional on the US President of the day certifying that the sale of these submarines, which would be half-way through their operational life, would not compromise US submarine strength.

And that is where we are today, with Donald Trump about to say whether AUKUS goes ahead.

Maybe it will, and more’s the pity if it does.

Will Trump demand further non-refundable pump-priming of US industry for it to go ahead?

Will he demand Australia agree to follow the US into more of its unjust and unwinnable wars for it to go ahead? We currently say we will not join them over Taiwan so we can expect pressure from Trump to pull us into line there for it to go ahead.

Will Trump say the US is so far behind in Virginia-class production that it cannot afford to sell even second-hand clunkers to Australia, and that we must further expand facilities here for the basing and maintenance of US subs?

Whatever the outcome, there will continue to be complete Australian subservience to the US demands, with the Australian government claiming that duckshit has been tuned into ice-cream, jobs have been saved, and the great Alliance remains as strong as ever.

This moment presents a really clear example of our sub-imperial power status, of our Second World status, that while the government might try and exercise some sort of imperial authority in our neighbourhood (and behave ruthlessly to Indigenous people within our own country), at the moment where Australian and US policies diverge, we'll be quickly put back in our place.

Stop AUKUS now!

For an anti-imperialist independent, peaceful and socialist Australia.

Will US blackmail us over AUKUS?

Written by: Nick G. on 14 April 2025

 

Kites are being flown in the US about tying the sale of second-hand Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia’s stand on a conflict between China and its off-shore province of Taiwan.

Scott Morrison’s original AUKUS arrangement was for the sharing of technology that would enable Australia to build its own nuclear-powered submarines.

After sleeping on the matter overnight, and not consulting his Cabinet colleagues, new Labor PM Anthony Albanese was persuaded to incorporate into the AUKUS agreement a plan to purchase three and possibly five Virginia-class submarines. 

This, however, was conditional on the US President of the day certifying that the sale of these submarines, half-way through their operational life, would not compromise US submarine strength.

This was confirmed on March 6 by Elbridge Colby, who has been tapped to serve as under-secretary of Defense for policy, said that the US commitment to the AUKUS arrangements was “conditional on U.S. industry building enough attack boats to meet domestic needs first”.

The issue at stake is Taiwan.  The whole point of moving to the long-range nuclear-powered boats is to have them sitting alongside US subs off the coast of China. This was in preference to having much cheaper, conventionally-powered submarines deployed for Australian coastal defence.

However, US shipyards cannot produce enough new Virginia class subs to replace those earmarked for sale to Australia.  They don’t have the skilled labour and can’t hold on to those they do have. Trump’s tariffs on overseas steel and aluminium will only complicate the timeline for the replacements.
Which is why policy makers for the US military are threatening to block the sales unless Australia formally commits to placing its AUKUS subs at the disposal of the US (under the guise of “interoperability” and “interchangeability”) in the event of war with China over Taiwan.

Former U.S. Navy strategist Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute recently ran a previously unreported multilateral war game simulating a response by U.S. allies to a Chinese blockade of Taiwan. Australian Defence Force commanders did not use nuclear-powered submarines in the South China Sea to attack Chinese targets, instead focusing on protecting Australia’s northern approaches with airpower, drones and missiles.

According to US reports, “consternation is growing in Washington that Australia’s reluctance to even discuss using the attack submarines against China means that transferring them out of the U.S. fleet to Australia would hurt deterrence efforts in the Indo Pacific.”

These concerns were echoed in a U.S. Congressional Budget Office report in February and testimony on Navy shipbuilding delays in March, in which officials said selling Virginia-class subs out of the fleet to Australia without replacements was risky because Canberra had not made it clear whether its military would join the U.S. in a conflict over Taiwan.

Obviously, this is all heading in the direction of using the threat of blocking the submarine sales to Australia to force Albanese, Wong and Marles to agree to a commitment to join the US in a war with China. There is already such a commitment from super-sellout Dutton who has said that it is “inconceivable” that Australia would not be there with the US.

And then there is the financial blackmail. We have already handed over many millions of non-refundable dollars to help pump-prime the struggling Us shipyards.

On October 10 last year, the US online InsideDefense.com reported: “Australia plans to transfer US $2 billion to the United States before the end of 2025 to bolster the U.S. submarine industrial base as part of the AUKUS partnership and fund long-lead items for the Virginia-class submarine program, a senior Navy official said today. This initial transfer will be followed by $100 million every year for the next 10 years, AUKUS Integration and Acquisition Program Manager Rear Adm. Lincoln Reifsteck told reporters.”

But even this is not enough. Reporter Kirsty Needham wrote in a Reuters despatch on April 10, “The Trump administration has asked for more funding, Marles said in March.”

How much more was not revealed.

Strategic Analysis Australia’s Michael Shoebridge, writing in the Australian Financial Review in February described AUKUS as having changed from a strategic partnership to a “deal kept on the road by Aussie cash”.  

He was commenting on Marles’s meeting with Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth in Washington with “a suitcase chock-full of $800 million to “invest” in US submarine production. It came with a promise of $4 billion more in future suitcases even before Australia starts to get the bills for its first US submarine.”

In a nutshell, we can expect US imperialism to blackmail its servants in Australia to deepen their compliancy and further undermine any pretence at sovereignty by agreeing to go to war with China over Taiwan, and keep paying through the nose for the privilege.

Forget Plan B – just dump AUKUS now.

Written by: Nick G. on 18 March 2025

 

The united front against AUKUS is definitely growing, with retired Admiral and former head of the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) Chris Barrie calling for a Plan B, and former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling it “a really bad deal”.

These developments are unconditionally welcomed and strengthen the movement against AUKUS.

At the same time, they require genuine anti-imperialists to ensure that the movement is led by people whose view of Australian independence goes further than a re-tweaking of the so-called Australia-US “Alliance”.

This leadership in turn requires the involvement of the working class in the fight to dump AUKUS.

Labor Against War’s letter to all Labor MP’s, and the passage of motions questioning AUKUS by some 150 ALP sub-branches assist in the mobilisation of Australian working people.

The Plan B calls reflect a growing awareness that the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine arrangements are fatally flawed. 

The US Congressional Research Service says the US can’t build Virginia SSNs at a rate needed to transfer subs to us. The UK Infrastructure & Projects Authority says delivery of AUKUS SSN reactors is unachievable. Even the Australian Navy agrees AUKUS is high risk; yet they stumble on. Trump adds to the uncertainty.

But Plan B proponents generally speak from a belief in the continuing value of the “Alliance” and seek better ways to protect it.

For example, Admiral Chris Barrie, calling for a Plan B on March 13, said the “US is no longer a reliable ally”. He said he had previously supported the idea of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines because of their superior capabilities but was worried there was no guarantee they would arrive under the current AUKUS strategy.

However, he did not criticise the “Alliance”.

Likewise, Turnbull’s comments did not advocate independence from the US stranglehold.

The positive message was that “The most likely outcome of the AUKUS pillar one is that we will end up with no submarines of our own.” 

“There will be Australian sailors serving on US submarines, and we’ll provide them with a base in Western Australia.

“We will have lost both sovereignty and security and a lot of money as well. That’s why I say it is a really bad deal.”

Turnbull’s prediction about how AUKUS will be implemented echoed an opinion piece in the US online Breaking Defense journal.

Under the heading "It’s time to ditch Virginia subs for AUKUS and go to Plan B", Henry Sokolski, referring to the Australian Government’s recent gift of $800 million to help pump-prime US shipyards, said “Because the submarine deal is unlikely to overcome budgetary, organizational, and personnel hurdles, that payment should be Australia’s last.”

His Plan B would cancel the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia “in light of Australia’s budget, organizational, and personnel shortfalls.” Instead, “US and UK subs operating from Australia with RAN sailors and maintained by Australian workers would serve as a sufficient deterrent. The first element of a Plan B is already underway, with US and UK nuclear submarines regularly visiting HMAS Stirling near Perth, including conducting maintenance with a visiting US Navy tender.”

This is just what Turnbull was suggesting might happen.

Sokolski then outlined how an expanded AUKUS Pillar 2, with additional partners South Korea, New Zealand and Canada, should develop “innovative projects” like uncrewed systems, AI, quantum computer science, and hypersonic weapons, which “could deliver technologies that provide most of what the Virginia-class subs would offer for Australia.”

Sokolski’s Plan B, with Turnbull’s warning of its likelihood, shows that more than a Plan B is needed.

What is needed is a break with the US and the removal of its military presence in Australia. This movement needs sufficient strength to last beyond Trump’s four-year term of office, and a recognition that whoever or whatever replaces Trump will try and maintain Pine Gap, North-West Cape, US marines in Darwin, nuclear-armed US bombers based at the Tindal RAAF base outside Katherine, nuclear-armed US and UK submarines based near Perth, US fuel dumps, access to satellite surveillance…and the list goes on.

The only alternative to AUKUS, according to former Australian Ambassador to the US John McCarthy on March 6 is Plan A. “This should not be a Plan B but rather a new Plan A – with the A standing for Australia and not ANZUS, let alone AUKUS.”

For us, Plan A means an independent and peaceful Australia that protects its own sovereignty without the aggressive belligerence that both Labor and Liberals are completely committed to.