Australia’s former prime minister Paul Keating has slammed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for “subsuming” Australia’s security interests to those of the United States and the United Kingdom.
In a written statement to the media on Wednesday, Keating accused the Australian government of signing up to the “worst deal in history.”
“The Albanese Government’s complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangement represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War II,” Keating said.
Keating warned that the ruling Labor party will “wince” when they realize that Canberra is returning to our “former colonial master” Britain.
“And in an arrangement concocted on the English coast at Cornwall by Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson — one of the greatest vulgarians of our time — and Joe Biden, Australia is locking in its next half-century in Asia as a subordinate to the United States, an Atlantic power,” Keating stated.
In an address to the National Press Club later in the day, Keating slammed Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
Is China a Threat?
“The only way the Chinese could threaten Australia or attack it is on land. That is, they bring an armada of ships with a massive army to invade us. This is not possible for the Chinese to do,” he stated.
The scathing criticism of the AUKUS arrangement by Keating, a senior party colleague of Albanese, comes a day after the US, UK, and Australia unveiled the first stage of the tripartite pact at a joint leaders’ meeting in California.
What is AUKUS Pact?
Under the AUKUS pact, Australia will build nuclear-powered submarines using British technology starting in 2040.
In the meantime, Canberra will acquire at least three Virginia-class submarines from the US. Australia will also host patrols of American and British submarines towards the end of the decade, as per the terms unveiled by the three agreements.
The AUKUS arrangement will cost Canberra over $250 billion over the next three decades, a sum which is likely to go up based on inflation projections in the coming years.
China, the perceived target of the US-led arrangement, repeatedly blasted the pact for inciting a “nuclear arms race” in the region.