‘Bedroom defence’ claims over Australian sailors sent to cabins during US submarine torpedo attack on Iran

The Acting Defence Minister has dodged questions over whether Australian sailors on a US submarine were ordered to their bunks during last week’s deadly attack on an Iranian warship, prompting claims the military now has a “bedroom defence” for war.

On Wednesday, The Nightly revealed the embedded Australian Defence Force personnel were kept in their cabins when the USS Charlotte fired torpedos at the IRIS Dena, killing at least 87 people.

Following a National Security Committee meeting last Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed three Royal Australian Navy members had been on board at the time but insisted they played no role in the strike.

A military source familiar with the tightly held details of last week’s attack subsequently confirmed to The Nightly that Australian personnel were kept away from the US “offensive action”, by being ordered to head to their cabins.

“I’m not going to get into the details of that, what I can do is confirm what the Prime Minister said on Friday, that they played absolutely no role in the offensive operation,” Acting Defence Minister Pat Conroy told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.

“We’re providing more information than we typically do on third-party deployment, and that, quite frankly, was because there was a level of disinformation out there that we wanted to nullify.

“But the citizens of Australia should be assured that they played no role in the offensive operations, and their deployment continues to be consistent with Australian law,” he added.

When pressed on whether Australia’s stance in future US-led wars would now be to “go under the covers”, Minister Conroy hit back saying the Government’s stated policy position is “that we will take no role in offensive operations against Iran”.

“I reject that characterisation of what occurred. We have a range of third-party deployments, that’s been going on for decades.”

“They will continue to be there, but we’ll always manage Australia’s role consistent with both laws, Australian laws, but also our national interest and our stated of policy position.”

Greens Senator David Shoebridge has seized on the revelations in The Nightly, saying the Australian Defence Force now appears to have a “bedroom defence” in its rules of engagement when deployed alongside the US military.

“When Australians are embedded on US assets, they’re sent literally to their bedroom at the time that the button is pressed,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“Now that might work for one moment. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but think about what happens when 10 per cent of the personnel across the entire US nuclear submarine fleet are made up of Australian personnel, because that’s what Labor has been championing.”

Despite the Iran war, Minister Conroy said the Albanese government remained focussed on the rotations of personnel on US nuclear-powered submarines to “build capacity and capability” in the Royal Australian Navy for AUKUS.

“We need to, and we want to, keep ramping up the training of submariners so that we’re ready to run our own Virginia-class submarines from the early 2030s and we’ll continue to do that.

“We’re confident we can manage those third-party deployments consistent with our laws and our stated position on things like Iran.”

According to US media outlet CBS News, the torpedo that struck and sank the Iranian warship was fired by Los Angeles-class submarine the USS Charlotte, but this has not yet been confirmed by the Pentagon or Australian Defence Department.