Well that's setting out the stall early - expect more of the same as time goes on

Significantly more lead time than the impression I had gained from news media at the time. It would still be interesting to know what sort of briefings were provided to make the case at the time, but the mere plebs of the Australian public will likely never have the privilege of hearing the basis, we just get vague statements that are supposed to be a justification.

The briefing was pretty much a this is what we are doing and what we are going to announce and no we aren't going to give you and briefing documents about it (assuming they actually existed)

Ah, so that is how we go about making such nationally significant and generational decisions that will massively eat into the available Defence (and overall Federal Government) budget for many many decades. I should have realised that...

"We (insert political party here) are the elected government of (insert country here). This is what we're going to do. If you don't like it you should have won the last election - tough!"

We (insert party) are the elected government and have looked into the rational of decision "xyz" and are going to cancel decision "xyz" and instead pursue "abc" instead.

If party B doesn't get solid justification from party A, and can't establish it once in government, seems a fair call. It has happened before, including major defence projects. Is that a good way to run a country?

Heck, party A didnt even have consistent plan about submarine acquisition under three different Prime Ministers. Latest decision change seemed to have been argued on the flimsy basis of changed strategic circumstances or similar vague words. I can dig out the media from the time to check the words. Expain that if you can.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news...-in-australia/

Arrival of USS Hawaii (SSN 776) for first AUKUS Nuclear-Powered Submarine Maintenance Activity in Australia... We welcome home the Australians who have been embedded with them.

USS Hawaii (SSN 776) has arrived at HMAS Stirling, where Australian personnel will collaborate with U.S. counterparts and the USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) for significant maintenance during a Submarine Tendered Maintenance Period (STMP)... This is a significant milestone for the AUKUS partnership, which promotes stability and security in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Max Hastings on the rampage
 

Today's "Times"Aukus pact is not a blank cheque for the US - Harold Wilson refused to send troops to Vietnam — and we must not blindly follow America into a clash with China

Max Hastings Monday September 02 2024, 12.01am, The Times

Many people’s eyes glaze on hearing the word “defence”. When “Australia” is added, they skip to the sports pages. However often important people tell us the world is now an exceptionally dangerous place, in the absence of falling bombs it is hard for governments to secure popular support for prophylactic action. Yet I shall try to convince you that we should take notice of an increasingly strident debate Down Under, about their own defence — explicitly, nuclear-powered submarines — because Britain is also a party to the Aukus pact, focus of the controversy...................................

.......................Moreover, the submarine purchase is only one element in increasingly ambitious Australian measures to bind the country closer to the US in response to Chinese expansionism in the Pacific archipelagos, especially the neighbouring Solomon Islands. Canberra is spending £7 billion creating bases in the northeast for US forces and aircraft. The defence minister Richard Marles said last month: “This is about deterrence.”

Yet a strong body of sceptics, some of them naval officers, are unhappy about the submarine commitment. The costs are stupendous — an estimated £175 billion over 30 years — and sure to rise. British designs for the boats, on which construction must start by the end of this decade, are immature. Moreover, both industry and the Royal Navy struggle against serious shortages of nuclear expertise — as do Australia and even the US. But the most important consideration in the minds of troubled Australians is that the Aukus deal threatens to oblige them to fight if the US so determines. In the words of one strategy analyst: “It seems Australia’s acquisition of [these submarines] is conditional upon an open-ended commitment to go to war against China. This may not be in our national interest.”

Among the most formidable critics is Professor Gareth Evans, Australia’s foreign minister from 1988 to 1996, who said at a Canberra conference last month it was easy to understand why Britain was so keen on Aukus — because we shall make money out of it. Also, he said, the deal is “perhaps nurturing the delusion of some continuing British influence on world affairs east of Suez”. ................ “the ever-clearer expectation on the US side that ‘integrated deterrence’ means that Australia will have no choice but to join the US in fighting any future war in which it chooses to engage anywhere in the Indo-Pacific, including defence of Taiwan” and said it “defies credibility to believe that in the absence of that last understanding, the [submarine and technology] transfers will ever proceed”.

Having highlighted Australian fears about the Aukus programme, it deserves emphasis that the critics are unlikely to prevail. The deal will survive — for now, at least — because so many big players are committed to it. ............ The British are the ones least likely to jump ship, almost literally, because of the prizes for our industries. Yet if the programme runs into serious troubles, delays and cost overruns, it is easy to envisage the Australians giving up on us and buying more boats from the Americans.

Whatever we think of Aukus, Britain must make a success of our part of the submarines’ construction because our national credibility is at stake. Yet a British defence insider said: “I don’t think our UK submarine sector is remotely capable of delivering what the Australians want on time, on cost or to standard.”............

A real prospect exists of a superpower collision. Yet for us it seems one thing vigorously to resist Chinese bullying, quite another to go to war.

.................. In 1966, after Harold Wilson rejected President Johnson’s impassioned requests for British military support in Vietnam, the US secretary of state Dean Rusk said bitterly: “When the Russians invade Sussex, don’t expect us to help you.” Yet Britain’s Atlantic relationship survived Wilson’s wise abstention. In the present volatile state of the world, and of US governance, it seems rash for either Australia or Britain to say or sign anything that promises blank-cheque support in an American shootout with China. Both our nations should sustain the policy of deterrence, which demands rearmament, to which Australia is today committing itself much more convincingly than Britain. But nothing in foreign policy should be unconditional. The Americans, ruthless bargainers, have never made it so, back to the Second World War.

Original article, via archive, in a more easily read format.

https://archive.ph/2024.09.02-034609...ding-ntbfwwnvl

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/brit...-us-nuke-pact/

Britain proposes removing expiry date from UK-US nuke pact

The UK government has put forward amendments to the UK-US Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), aiming to secure the continuity of nuclear cooperation between the two nations.

A significant aspect of these amendments is the removal of the expiry date for certain provisions within the agreement, which is set to expire in December 2024. These changes were outlined in Command Paper 1135, published on 25 July 2024.

According to a research briefing by Claire Mills for the House of Commons, “Many of the proposed changes are minor technical amendments relating to outdated language, definitions and terminology and to reflect the different classifications of information that may be exchanged under the MDA.” However, three key amendments are particularly noteworthy:
.

1. Article 4 establishes reciprocal provisions for naval nuclear propulsion cooperation, allowing the UK to transfer technology and share information with the US.
2. Article 5 removes the expiry provisions related to Article III bis, allowing the MDA to remain in force on an “enduring basis.” Consequently, the agreement will not require renewal every ten years.
3. Article 13 introduces provisions to ensure that information, material, or equipment shared under the MDA will remain protected if the agreement is terminated by either party in the future.……

Changes at the top for BAE Systems Australia - Ben Hudson sacked for not being focussed enough on the Nuclear Submarine project. This team is demanding 100% focus to ensure that the project is successful.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal...0240904-p5k7x7

Thats pretty big news. BAE is responsible for the 2 biggest defence projects in Australia at the moment. Type 26 / Hunter class and SSN AUKUS

which leads straight to

"What was he focusing on?"

Do you have a link to this?
I can only find that Albanese said he was told the day before the 15/9 announcement.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...aukus-briefing

Apparently, he was more focussed on smaller BAES Australia projects (such as Strix) whereas multi $Billion projects such as AUKUS SSN & Hunter FFG’s (& possibly DDG’s) didn’t get the appropriate amount of attention.

Is it really the nuclear submarine project that this "sacking" is related to? I would have thought the Hunter class is the more pressing current project the Department of Defence would be concerned about? The AFR article is "subscriber only" but it starts:

"The boss of one of Australia’s biggest military contractors... has been ousted after defence chiefs lost confidence in his ability to focus on major projects...."

It may not even be limited to acquisition contracts, but also sustainment activities that BAE Systems Australia hold contracts for.

So I wasn't dreaming this was the case, and the article makes it clear Dutton and Morrison don't disagree with what Albanese indicated...

Again, I think this has more to do with wedge politics than anything else.

Addition: "Labor leadership found out on the 15th AUG" could of course mean the plan was disclosed to them 'quietly' at that time by other than the coalition leadership?

I went back through my history I cant find were I read it, I was pretty sure it was federal parlament site but I cant find it. So guessing I was wrong, maybe they did only get a day warning

My recall of articles soon after the AUKUS announcement was that Biden needed to be assured of concrete bipartisan support for the concept within the Australian political parties and thus Albanese & a few select shadow ministers were secretly briefed by Morrison (and his team) and asked for a firm commitment before the US would agree.

This article confirms that it was one of four requirements that the US insisted on.

“Third was Australia’s capability. Would the Australian political system be capable of bipartisan commitment for the decades required? Is Australian politics stable enough? Could Australia afford the price tag?”