David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for Defence (Senator Wong) to a question without notice I asked today relating to AUKUS.

It was an extraordinary performance from the government on this response. Key questions are being asked about an agreement that is now finally in the public domain and an agreement that could have been entered into only with the concurrence of both the Foreign Minister and the Defence Minister. Yet we have the Foreign Minister, the minister in this chamber, refusing to engage in straightforward questions about the one-sided nature of this agreement.

I asked the minister how could the government have entered into an agreement which sees the investment of hundreds of billions of dollars of Australian taxpayers money, with the bulk of it going offshore to the United States and the US. We now know the agreement has in it a provision that allows the United States or the UK to terminate it on one year's notice. How could you agree to an agreement such as that without a clawback provision? How could that happen? The nonresponse from the Foreign Minister spoke volumes. The refusal even to engage with the issue, to just keep pretending that it's okay because they are our friends, spoke volumes.

The US and the UK have approached this like rational nations looking after their national interests, and Australia has come to it like, I don't know, some sort of lovestruck teenager who is desperately keen for the relationship to continue. That's what this agreement reads like.

You could look at article 1 of the agreement, which says that the US and UK will do this but only insofar as it's in their national interest and only insofar as it doesn't in any way prejudice their defence and security. Why is that important? It's important because the US knows that, if it provides any nuclear submarines to Australia and it doesn't have enough for itself, the US Navy will tell the next President that it does prejudice their security in their terms—and what will happen? They will take all their stuff back and keep our money, and we will get nothing. Is it any wonder we ask those questions of the foreign minister? What is extraordinary is her refusal to answer.

Question agreed to.