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The $368 billion deal is a marketer’s dream, hatched in secret with no accountability and to hell with the cost.
AUKUS is now officially born and one day it will deliver eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. When that day comes no one can be sure. It will be three decades away. In the meantime Australia will meet its “capability gap” with slightly used nuclear-powered submarines from the US. Money, though, is no object.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave the political leader’s speech in San Diego today but let’s cut to the chase, do the right thing and christen these for what they are: Morrison-class submarines. It was the much maligned former prime minister who got the ball rolling, as he was happy to tell everyone last week via the pages of his old mates at The Australian.
It is also marvellously appropriate because whatever else it is, AUKUS is a marketer’s dream. It is quintessential Morrison. It has been hatched in secret and will continue that way. There will be no day of accountability. Most of us will be long gone before the promised product ever materialises. It will be prohibitively expensive. It is set to be some $368 billion over three decades — but we all know that’s a low-ball estimate, done for early sales purposes, and that it will at least double if not treble. It always does.
Read more about how we’ll never know just how much the the AUKUS deal will cost.
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