LATIKA M BOURKE: The one thing Anthony Albanese needs to turn the AUKUS debacle around

New boats, old boats, no boats. The debate over AUKUS has touched a new low since Labor inherited the program in May 2022.

The government remains steadfast in support for seeing through the program, as it should.

But it should take the new furore over the fairly unremarkable revelation that Australia will acquire three used Virginia-class submarines from the United States, as opposed to two second-hand and one brand new boat as a serious wake-up call that it’s commitment to progressing the program and advocating it publicly, have slipped.

There is nothing wrong with three old boats, and in fact, many advantages, as the government is belatedly pointing out.

Indeed, as Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead from the Australian Submarine Agency told Senate Estimates, Australia has been lobbying the US for this outcome for 18 months.

So it is a major failure from the government not to have educated the public about why this is a better choice well ahead of time.

Once again, whether it is complacency, arrogance, incompetence or a combination of all three, it is another mistake of their own making. The result is a vacuum which critics are now exploiting.

Backbench MP Ed Husic, who was nominated by his Labor-right colleagues to exit the Cabinet table, has gone nuclear, so as to speak, demanding a new caucus vote on whether or not to proceed with the program.

The ex Midnight Oil frontman and former Cabinet Minister Peter Garrett wants to front a new campaign — an investigation into AUKUS’ merits.

While Mr Garrett’s intentions are consistent with his lifelong opposition to nuclear, they are as misguided as his ideological stance on the subject in 2026.

The world has changed. Countries are turning to nuclear, as expensive as it is, as one way of helping green their energy sources to confront climate change.

Similarly, the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping, is not a peaceful actor in the world and their quest to dominate the region, as they have shown with their crackdown in Hong Kong, repression of the Uyghurs and repeated menacing of democratically-ruled Taiwan, threatens Australian’s safety and prosperity.

Mr Husic’s intervention should be seen through a less-ideological lens. The dismissed Cabinet Minister specialises in raging against the machine on a variety of causes now his rise up the greasy pole has peaked with an ignominious slide downwards after the last election.

While he fashions himself as the conscious of the left movement, he was not heard voicing such concerns about AUKUS when he sat around the Cabinet table.

So while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who backs AUKUS but puts little shoulder to the wheel when it comes to his comfortable territory of defence and national security, can wave away the chirping of these two critics, he should not ignore the underlying trend that they represent.

The once-near unanimous consensus supporting AUKUS has gone. That doesn’t mean this will turn into a wave of public opposition, but it does mean that critical voices will get more airtime and be taken seriously.

This will reach a particularly dangerous point if the costs blow out again, and or the goal posts are shifted.

More credible critics may emerge and Labor should arrest what could be a perilous slide in the debate. Mr Albanese has openly stated he wants a third term meaning AUKUS will actually become his legacy, rather than that of the original author and predecessor Scott Morrison.

The Defence Minister and his department’s attitude to secrecy must stop. The Department of Foreign Affairs must be forced to take a back seat to allow for the rationale for the program to be re-prosecuted, by new and original faces.

The good news is that the public still remains overall convinced that it is in Australia’s interests to buy and one day build nuclear submarines, even at enormous cost.

That is, China has displayed increasingly aggressive behaviour and an intent to dominate key sea lanes, on which Australia’s export-dependent economy relies.

Australia’s role in securing the freedom for our commercial vessels to transport goods freely across the seas must therefore change.

Protecting our shores will no longer be enough. Working in tandem with the United States, Australian submariners will go further, faster and quieter than ever before using boats that do not need to surface at the rate required by diesel electric boats, making nuclear-powered ones stealthier and more fearsome.

“AUKUS is the thing that keeps Xi Jinping awake at night,” Michael McCaul, the Republican Senator who chair’s Congress’ Foreign Relations Committee, is fond of saying.

This is a powerful asset for a country of Australia’s size to have, as it continues to balance it’s relationship with China which provides the nation the bulk of its economic prosperity at the same time as posing the country’s greatest security threat at the same time as being allied to the United States, China’s rival and potential defender of Taiwan.

What would help, is if an Australian could talk to ordinary Australians about the value, need and justification for AUKUS in the same way.

The government should seriously consider appointing an AUKUS envoy, an unashamed but seriously-minded media tart, respected by both sides of parliament with a remit to argue the case relentlessly — and creatively — to the public.

It may also want to consider good-faith transparency measures, such as AUKUS dashboards, justifying to the public that the enormous sums being spent on the program are delivering results, however incremental for the time being.

This person could also act as an important interlocuter between the three AUKUS countries, when ministers are tied down with domestic priorities.

AUKUS is a colossal project but it need not be a failure. No-one doubts Labor’s intentions of wanting to see it succeed, but it can do more to convince the public that is working as hard as it should for this outcome.