Former prime minister Paul Keating has “diminished” himself with his scathing criticism of the Aukus submarine deal and the Labor government’s role in making it a reality, Anthony Albanese has said.
Keating gave a blistering assessment of the Aukus agreement and senior government figures, including Albanese himself, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, and the defence minister, Richard Marles, in a press club address on Wednesday, calling it the “worst deal in all history.”
In his first response to the Labor great’s comments, Albanese said he maintained the “utmost respect” for Keating for “what he achieved as treasurer and as prime minister” but he fundamentally disagreed with his view on the $368bn agreement.
“My job is to govern Australia in 2023, based upon what we see is the facts before us,” Albanese told Melbourne radio 3AW, while defending Marles and Wong against Keating’s attacks.
“Paul Keating wasn’t complimentary about all three of us yesterday. But that is his prerogative to do, so I fundamentally disagree with his view. And I disagree with his attitude towards the state of the world in 2023.
“It is unfortunate that Mr Keating chose such a very strong personal statement against people. I don’t think that that does anything other than diminish him, frankly.”
Albanese is also facing pressure on how his government will pay for the program, but ruled out any sort of hypothecated tax.
“We’ll continue to do what we need to do to defend our nation,” he said.
“Will we need to have examination ongoing – like every government does, every year of our budget? Yes, of course. We look at our budget. We look at it in a responsible way. We inherited $1tn of Liberal party debt, that is an issue that has to be dealt dealt with. There are pressures on the budget.
“But will there be hypothecated taxes for this? No, that’s not the way budgets work.”
Albanese said he had a responsibility as prime minister to “put in place defence, procurement of assets, so that our capability is the best it can possibly be” and he did not see paying for the submarines or boosting public services such as Medicare as an “either/or” situation.
The agreement was also criticised by former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who questioned the UK’s ability to continue its investment in its military given its economic woes.
The author of the scuttled French submarine deal was scathing of the decision to abandon that agreement in favour of the US and UK pact, which he says will “take a lot more time, cost a great deal more money and have a lot more risk” than the deal Scott Morrison “recklessly cancelled”.
Turnbull said it was a “tragic omission” that further options with the French deal weren’t explored before it was torn up, and questioned whether Britain could sustain investment in its navy, given its substantial economic problems.
“The UK has real challenges and unlike France, it is not actually in the Asia-Pacific,” he told ABC radio RN Breakfast.
“The bottom line is their economy is sick. It’s got fundamental, sort of existential problems. And you’ve got to ask yourself whether Britain is going to be able to sustain investment in its navy and its military in the years ahead, given this huge demand that they’ve got elsewhere, not least the National Health Service.”
The former Liberal prime minister accepted the Aukus deal was “done and set” and there was no turning back from it, but said there were still questions which needed to be answered, including what would happen to naval staff trained in operating the nuclear submarines once they left the defence force.
“One of the challenges we face is going to be: what do they do when they finish their naval service? So in the United States, there is a big nuclear industry, so people will join the navy, get their nuclear training, engineering, physics and so forth. And then when they leave the navy and they get sick of, you know, sailing around under the water for months on end, they go and work in the nuclear industry.
“We don’t have one. So it’s going to be a challenge getting people to do this. It’s arduous work. But then young people will say, ‘OK, well, that’s great. I did my 10 years or 15 years in the navy, what do I do next? Go and train for something completely different? Or go and work overseas?’”
Turnbull said that issue could inevitably lead to Australia having a nuclear industry – something which has been dismissed by the Albanese government – as a flow-on effect of the deal, adding that these “practical issues” had been lost in the “hoopla and jingoistic extravagant headlines”.
