Former PM says if operation of nuclear subs depends on US then that is ‘a momentous change which has not been acknowledged’
Asked this week whether he would have initiated the pact had he been Australia’s prime minister at the time, Albanese said the question was “hypothetical” but there was “nothing terribly surprising” about deepening cooperation given the historical ties.
The prime minister said Aukus was about more than nuclear submarines. “It’s about our defence arrangements, it is about interoperability,” Albanese said. He said it was a pact between nations, not politicians.Albanese intimated Labor would have landed in the same place as Morrison.
Concerns about a diminution of Australian sovereignty were heightened in 2021 when Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser, Kurt Campbell, observed that Aukus would lead to “a deeper interconnection and almost a melding in many respects of our services and working together on common purpose that we couldn’t have dreamed about five or 10 years ago”.. “I fully understand how important sovereignty and independence is for Australia.
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, told Guardian Australia last week the government had been “very mindful” of the issue of sovereignty throughout the Aukus talks. “The outcome of this process is one which, in my view, greatly enhances Australian sovereignty. And the fundamental reason for that is that the greater the capability Australia has to defend itself, the greater the sovereignty, and this is a very significant capability that we’re looking at developing.”
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