Labor debate over AUKUS hangs in the balance

The most extraordinary thing about AUKUS, one of Australia’s foremost intelligence and foreign policy experts pointed out in early April, was that neither the former Morrison government nor the current Albanese one had taken it upon themselves to publicly make the “case [for it] beyond the generalities”. 

“There has been no formal articulation for the reasons for the decision, no report, no speech to Parliament, no speech at all, other than the sales patter of successive governments,” said the late Allan Gyngell, citing the usual refrains around threats to the “rules-based order” and an ascendant China.  

The most the nation had been treated to from government, Gyngell went on to say, were those “deeply irritating nose-tapping asides from politicians to journos” along the lines of “‘oh, if only you knew what we knew, you would agree with us’,” which he called both a “nonsense” and a departure from the approach of previous governments in conflicts past. To Gyngell’s mind, the scale and sheer secrecy — even deception — of the AUKUS pact was nonpareil in Australian history.