At long last, the details of the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership between Australia, the US and the UK have been made public.
Eighteen months after a historic commitment between the three countries was sketched out, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood together in San Diego to lay out the plan. Australia will buy some Virginia-class submarines to tide the country over until the delivery of a new class of nuclear submarines, the SSN-AUKUS.
The cost to acquire, build and maintain eight nuclear submarines and the accompanying expansions to Australia’s naval bases and shipbuilding infrastructure? A cool $268 to $368 billion by 2055, subject to the vagaries of long-term planning.
To some, it’s a no-brainer to spend more than half the Commonwealth’s entire annual revenue on replacing the Collins-class submarines to potentially stave off aggression from China or, in the worst-case scenario, to defend us from an attack.
But just for the sake of discussion, we asked Crikey staff to imagine: what would you spend $368 billion on instead of the AUKUS deal?
John Buckley, reporter
With $200-odd billion, the government could raise rates of income support on pensions, JobSeeker, youth allowance and other payments to $88 a day (in line with the Henderson Poverty Line) until the end of the decade — give or take to get the nation through the worst of inflation headwinds — and probably build a strong case for keeping rates there. Parliamentary Budget Office costing from May last year estimated the cost of such an increase would be $88.7 billion over the four years from May 2022 to 2024-25.
Cam Wilson, associate editor
If I’m getting rid of AUKUS, I’m going to spend $15 billion on expanding Australia’s long-range missiles to keep the hawks happy. Then I’m looking to spread the love around. With thanks to the good people at Guardian Australia who estimated the cost of these measures, I’m spending $30 billion to build 36,000 social housing units each year for the next 30 years, $130 billion on building high-speed rail up the east coast, $90 billion on boosting public research by increasing funding for universities and public institutions like the CSIRO, expanding preschool for children aged three to five for $12 billion, and kicking every taxpayer a $1000 cash bonus for cost-of-living pressures for $12 billion. Even then, I have enough left over cash to buy Twitter at its Elon Musk sale price (~$56 billion Australian) because, frankly, I’m sick of hearing about it.
Gina Rushton, news editor
Apparently (according to the Australia Institute) a $12 billion investment in household electrification over five years could eliminate a third of our emissions and save households $40 billion a year by 2028. Or, cynically, if we didn’t want to spend it on mitigation, maybe we could just prepare for the lost earnings we will miss out on in the climate crisis. The United Nations has estimated that under two degrees of warming, Australia’s economy would miss out on $115 billion in lost earnings over the next decade or $350 billion over the next 20 years. Universal free childcare forever could also be cool.
Maeve McGregor, reporter
I question the $368 billion price tag. At its inception, the trilateral AUKUS arrangement was spare on the cost of adding a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia’s defence arrangements. There were initially whispers it could cost a staggering $8.4 billion each submarine, not including operating and support costs. Defence experts then weighed in, suggesting a total price tag of about $180 billion was more likely.
And yesterday media leaks added some $20 billion to that total. The Sydney Morning Herald’s foreign affairs and national security correspondent Matthew Knot framed the issue of cost as the “$100 billion, and quite possibly $200 billion, question”.
Today Australians learnt none of those estimates was even close to the mark, with the breathtaking cost of submarine security to conversely reside between $268 billion and $368 billion over 30 years.
If the Department of Defence’s track record in managing and delivering major projects is any guide, it’s likely those figures are a gross underestimate. The auditor-general’s 2021-22 review of Defence spending, tabled last month, discovered cost overruns of some $17.5 billion, relaying serious concerns about the failure of the department to implement measures guarding against cost blowouts. Though the government has said the submarine project will be overseen by a multi-agency body in an effort to guard against similar problems, the Greens are unconvinced, likening the project to “mortgaging our future”.
I agree with John. This is money that should be spent on welfare and making sure no one is living in poverty. We’re also experiencing a serious crisis in social and affordable housing. According to the Greens, an annual investment of $5 billion a year would go a long way to fixing the problem.
Anton Nilsson, reporter
How about 73.6 billion Magnum Almond ice creams for $5 each?
What are your ideas for how the AUKUS money could be better spent? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
So we’re selling our resources to China so we can raise enough coin to protect us … from China.
Sounds a lot like the Clubs NSW argument that renue from poker machines is necessary for local communities … to repair the damage caused by poker machines.
Makes perfect sense, i’m off now to grab some beer … to cure this hangover.
Nailed it.
(Hit Entry accidentally). It also makes as much sense as fighting for a country that prefers to spend your taxes on buying expensive weapons while keeping in place the constructs that leave you homeless and underpaid.
Pig Iron Bob revisited.
Yes. Can we coin a phrase to describe Albanese along the lines of pig iron bob?
Given that he is featureless, useless and only good for beating into a froth, how about Albumen Albo?
Albominion. Sounds almost like a lightweight, pliable and cheap substitute for a steel spine, don’t it.
Nah, more like what the country might be called were he an ideas type – rather than just a empty vessel, a sounding brass for the real power brokers.
Not that he has ever been accused of having had an original idea or guiding principle.
Ok, whose buying our resources if not China?
Yeh, right. All defence procurement projects end with a cost blow-out, and are delivered many years late if at all. The size of the blow-out increases in proportion to the initial value of the project and its duration. This project is by far the biggest in value and duration so far. Its cost blow-out can be confidently predicted to dwarf anything yet seen (until it is cancelled, anyway).
So lets run a sweepstake. In which year will the predicted cost exceed $500 billion? How about 2030?
If the rate of increase to Defense Contracts the Coalition signed is any indicator, I’d say more like 2025…………..
…………some of them blew out as soon as they’d been signed.
That’s what happens when you give your friends a signed blank cheque
The Poms are having awful problems bu i losing their subs, and thecYak subs are wickedly unreliable as well as being outdated, unreliable and vulnerable to easy destruction by drones. But yes, why not chip in huge amounts of our spare cash to improve US and UK shipyards?
And an added bonus, we will get many of the those defensive Chinese nuclear missiles aimed at us.
What could possibly go wrong as we head to hell in a handbasket.
Building and Yank….proofreading failures!!
I have rarely been more disgusted with my country than I am today.
We normally manage to ignore our poor and marginalised fellow-citizens, but our willingness to make this execrable payment to arm ourselves to be America’s spear makes it impossible not to reflect on what that money could be used for.
Bring on the revolution!!!
Yes, I’ve got the little list!
I disagree that we will be America’s spear. More likely America’s…let’s see….fall guy. Shield. Tank trap. Land mine. Speed hump. Obstacle. Any description you like that make’s us and describes us as a target.
Aussies are too apathetic to give a polished rat’s arse about what many of us are seeing as our impending doom.
I don’t understand this argument of being “America’s spear” as a justification against arming ourselves against China. This reminds of people calling Ukraine , America’s spear against Russia.
That is a fat lot of good to the Ukrainian people who are being actively invaded and wished they had armed themselves better earlier. Do you think people in Ukraine fighting Russia are only doing it because “man, I hope Russia really knows the Americans sent us”
The whole thing is devastating and obscene.
What is Australia doing?
And why has @AustralianLabor bought into this war-mongering horror show.
And tax cuts for the wealthy?
This is not what we voted for.
Not what we voted for? How can you say that, unless you voted against both Labor and Coalition (which makes your use of ‘we’ a bit of a stretch that you could have clarified to avoid confusion)? AUKUS and the stage three tax cuts were explicit and clear Labor promises, made in lock-step with the Coalition. Labor voted for these policies while it was in opposition and confirmed its support during the campaign. Every Labor voter therefore voted for them.
It’s what ~2/3 of us voted for !
Just like off-shore internment – 70-80% of the electorate voted for the uniparty in favour of that abuse.
Not what was voted for? It was fought in parliament in Labor and they lost.
What was won in parliament? The super tax on the wealthy. By Labor.