Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians, I have good news. At a time when we're being squeezed on our mortgages and in the supermarkets, this news will come as a great relief to everyone. Australia has made its first AUKUS payment to the United States. That's just under A$800 million shipped off to the US. It's not to build our submarines but to upgrade their facilities where they might, one day, choose to build our submarines. That's $800 million not spent on our schools, though this government doesn't seem keen to fully fund them anyway. That's $800 million not invested into Medicare, into mental health or into lifting JobSeeker above the poverty line. That's an $800 million donation to the 50 states that rule over us, the 51st state. And didn't our government lay down like a snake and crawl towards the seat of power at the recent meeting with the American Secretary of Defense, where Richard Marles said the AUKUS deal—

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will address members in the other place by their correct title.

Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Defence said the AUKUS deal 'represents a very significant increase of the American footprint on the Australian continent, something we very much welcome'. The government rightly mocks the opposition's uncosted nuclear plan, but, when those power plants finally arrive years later and are billions over budget, at least they will produce energy and some electricity.

The Guardian reported last year:

A US official has declined to explicitly guarantee Australia will have full control of the Aukus nuclear-powered submarines …

So we'll pay for the submarines, we'll pay to upgrade American port facilities and we'll pay Americans rather than Australians to build them, but we won't even own them. To paraphrase President Trump, 'This has been the worst deal in the history of deals, maybe ever.'

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Payman. I remind you of standing order 185(1).