For Stephen Smith, the challenge of working with the US and UK on hypersonics, AI and supercomputing looks even more daunting than nailing a $368 billion subs deal.
– which became law in Britain a week ago – and pinning down AUKUS Pillar One. But now it needed to spread its wings.
Staff say he repeatedly exhorts them to get out and soak up British culture, expanding their minds, contacts and capabilities. He toldthis reflected his own experience: he studied and worked in London in the early 1980s, and “I still have connections here who I regard as just invaluable, lifelong”. It sounds like a straightforward pastime. But since he arrived, he’s had a bout of COVID-19 and an English drought has broken. “The only thing that is a killer in London is rain. Cold doesn’t kill anything but rain does,” he admitted.
“Under-appreciated, for I think pretty much forever, has been the depth of the defence, strategic, security, intelligence relationship,” he said.“That has always been very deep, and has always been highly appreciated by both Australia and the UK. But I think AUKUS, if you like, popularises that, AUKUS crystallises the importance of that relationship.
“There are a whole range of things which we’ve been doing as Five Eyes partners, and they’re not just limited to intelligence relationships, which we will continue to do.”The defence and security relationship helpfully transcends partisan ties. But still: Westminster has been a Tory town for more than a decade; and Mr Smith, unlike his two predecessors Alexander Downer and George Brandis, is a Labor man.
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