|
senate vote 2024-11-19#8
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2024-11-24 14:44:23
|
Title
Matters of Urgency — Aukus- Matters of Urgency - Aukus - Cancel order of nuclear-powered submarines
Description
<p class="speaker">Andrew Bragg</p><p>I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 19 November, from Senator McKim:</p>-
- The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2024-11-19.133.1) introduced by NSW Senator [David Shoebridge](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/nsw/david_shoebridge) (Greens), which means it failed.
- ### Motion text
- > *That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:*
- >
- > *With the election of Donald Trump in the US, Australia must end the attempted acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, estimated to cost over $360 billion, and the AUKUS agreement must be cancelled.*
<p class="italic">Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today the Australian Greens propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:</p><p class="italic"><i>With the election of Donald Trump in the US, Australia must end the attempted acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, estimated to cost over $360 billion, and the AUKUS agreement must be cancelled."</i></p><p>Is the proposal supported?</p><p> <i>More than the number of senators required by the </i> <i>standing orders having risen in their places—</i></p><p>With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.</p> <p class="speaker">David Shoebridge</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:</p><p class="italic">With the election of Donald Trump in the US, Australia must end the attempted acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, estimated to cost over $360 billion, and the AUKUS agreement must be cancelled.</p><p>Half of Australians want to scrap AUKUS, and they're saying loud and clear that we need to end this $368 billion nuclear submarine gamble, it turns out, with President Trump and the US. This deal was toxic from day one. Then Prime Minister Morrison introduced it as a political wedge, and Labor just rolled over. It turns out a short-term political sugar hit and fear of the coalition were more important to Labor than Australia's long-term national interests. So now Prime Minister Albanese has a $368 billion nuclear gamble, and the cards have turned up trumps—just the wrong sort of Trump. If you go back two years, when it was all still shiny and unknown, barely 20 per cent of Australians wanted to dump AUKUS, but the closer we look, the closer the parliament looks and the closer they look, the worse it gets. Every week that goes by, more and more people are realising how dangerous and irresponsible the two pro-AUKUS war parties are. This week, we saw 48 per cent of Australians come out and say they want to renegotiate our way out of AUKUS. Not even 20 per cent are in love with this pro-nuclear deal that Labor and the coalition have come up with.</p><p>What do we get out of AUKUS? We don't get submarines, I can tell you that much. Every single AUKUS agreement this government has signed has a get-out-of-jail-free card for the United States if they don't like it. Just recently, the head of the US Navy's Virginia class submarine program—they're the submarines Albanese is begging the US to give us a couple of—dropped a truth-bomb on AUKUS by making it clear that the US are making nowhere near enough nuclear submarines for themselves. So why would they give any to us? Let's do some maths. The US is making about 1.1 to 1.2 Virginia class submarines a year. To make enough submarines to give some to Australia, they need to make 2.33. In case those in Labor aren't following along—because your defence minister sure isn't!—making one submarine a year is less than making two. What do you think will happen when President Trump, son-of-President-Trump or whatever the future US president is looks at a US military that has about half the number of submarines it was meant to have? Do you think they'll sign off on giving Australia some? Of course they won't, which is exactly why they've been putting all these escape hatches in the AUKUS clause. If that isn't bad enough, we have no way of getting back the $10 billion we've already forked out to the US and the UK, even if they decide to give us no submarines.</p><p>The question isn't, 'Will we get nuclear submarines?' The question the Australian public is asking is, 'How many tens of billions of dollars will Labor and the coalition fork out to the United States and the UK before the US jumps out?' The only thing we will get from AUKUS is a big, fat target on Australia's main cities and tonnes and tonnes of toxic nuclear waste. Last time we were sitting, the war parties teamed up to ram through legislation that will see nuclear waste dumped right next to Adelaide and Perth. Who is Labor doing this for? Why are they making major cities nuclear targets, making toxic waste dumps and forking out public funds to the US? It's not in the national interests of Australia. It's not in our defence interests. In fact, the only people winning and grinning over this are the likes of Donald Trump, who keeps getting bucketloads of Australian dollars shovelled towards him. And that's Trump, who controls multiple US spy bases in Australia. That's Trump, whose commander in chief is in charge of thousands of US marines in Darwin. That's Trump, who is in control of US nuclear-capable bombers sitting there in RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory. It's Trump who has control of nuclear-powered submarines coming through Australia's ports—ports that the Labor government is spending $7 billion to build for US nuclear submarines. In what world does any of this make us safer? It is long past time to scrap AUKUS.</p> <p class="speaker">Simon Birmingham</p><p>You take your pick. Is it reckless indifference, or is it fairies at the bottom of the garden? It's one or the other from the Australian Greens when it comes to the positions and statements we've just heard from Senator Shoebridge. There is reckless indifference to Australia's national safety and security and to how we keep our country and region stable, secure and with a prosperous future ahead. Or, indeed, there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, not having any knowledge at all.</p><p>I assume the former, frankly, because Senator Shoebridge is actually a smart person. He does actually understand what's happening. But, indeed, it is an indifference. It seems to be a belief that there in a parallel universe that we can tread, where the security and defence of our nation isn't something we have to take seriously. Well, it is something we have to take seriously. What was completely absent from Senator Shoebridge's remarks was any acknowledgement of the context that Australia finds itself in. There was no acknowledgement at all of the reality that world military expenditure increased for nine consecutive years in the lead-up to 2023, and it has certainly continued since then. We're up to 11 consecutive years, no doubt, of continuous growth in world military expenditure. Indeed, in 2023, it was a 6.8 per cent increase, seeing the steepest year-on-year rise in more than a decade, and, of course, it's coming off ever-higher bases as that global growth in military expenditure is undertaken.</p><p>We wish it were not the case, but, tragically, we face the highest level of global military expenditure in real terms since the end of the Second World War. That is the reality of the circumstance we face. That growth is being driven in our region. East Asia's military expenditure increased by some 6.2 per cent in 2023, reaching on the publicly-accounted-for records—and I'll come to that public accountability—some $411 billion. It was 52 per cent higher in our region in 2023 than it was in 2014.</p><p>Where is this coming from in terms of that growth of global military expenditure and East Asian military expenditure? As we and certainly the parties of government know, it's China's military expenditure, which has risen consecutively for more than 30 years. It's the longest unbroken streak recorded by any country, according to independent measurement. Just pause and reflect on that for a minute. There have been 30 consecutive years of China increasing its military expenditure—the longest unbroken streak of any nation, according to independent assessment. As I said before, that's only on the publicly available data. Some of those who undertake assessment have indicated that, from public data in 2022-23, China's public defence budget was around $229 billion. But estimates take that to, potentially, in excess of $700 billion.</p><p>The security challenges we face in our region are real, because, sadly, we see China not behave as we would wish a great power to behave but exert its military influence in ways that are counterproductive to the peace and stability of our region. We all wish that were different, and it's important that we convey that message. To secure peace and stability, we need to have effective deterrence in place. That was the lesson out of World War II, where, indeed, lack of deterrence and choice of appeasement tragically led the world into enormous conflict. Deterrence is the way to create the scope for diplomacy to do its job and to create peace and security, which is the objective we all want. Out of World War II the architecture was built to try to ensure that we had not only stronger bases for diplomatic efforts but also shared deterrence umbrellas.</p><p>The alliance with the US under the ANZUS Treaty, an important achievement of the Menzies government, has been built upon with AUKUS. AUKUS is about ensuring Australia achieves the defence capabilities, as well as the defence industrial capabilities, we need for the future. They are two pillars where we share an interest with the US and the UK. No amount of demeaning the United States or our relationship with them by Senator Shoebridge or the Greens will deter us from the fact that together we are stronger and together we can build those capabilities for both our defence forces and our defence industry and create the type of deterrence that can give us room for diplomacy to secure peace for the future.</p> <p class="speaker">Raff Ciccone</p><p>I also join to speak on this urgency motion moved by Senator McKim and the Australian Greens. I must say it is quite absurd for Senator Shoebridge and the Australian Greens to come into this place to lecture us about national security. The Greens, as we know, have a history of jumping to false conclusions. I do trust that the Australian people will see through these very much misleading statements that have been made not just today but on an ongoing basis.</p><p>The Greens allege that the trilateral AUKUS treaty that was signed in August last year was secretive and 'driving us further into US war plans with China'. This is simply false—a baseless claim. The full agreement was tabled in the parliament in the first sitting after it was signed, in line with all the signed treaty processes that every Australian government has gone through since Federation. The Greens also know that the government has also ruled out Australia disposing of any intermediate and high-level radioactive waste from the United Kingdom and the United States of America, yet they continue to spread misinformation on this very issue. Suggestions by the Australian Greens, including Senator Shoebridge, that this is a one-sided deal dismiss the fact that the United Kingdom and the United States have also agreed to share their prized military capabilities and technologies with our country, something that the Greens always choose to ignore.</p><p>The Albanese government is united with our AUKUS partners in our commitment to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, and this will not change. In all the government's engagement with the United States across the full political spectrum, there has been a very consistent message in support of AUKUS. Furthermore, our trilateral security partnership is yet another example of the government's proud record on positively engaging in international affairs, defending Australia's national interests and, more importantly, creating Australian jobs, and we will continue to accelerate the delivery of the capabilities to ensure that the ADF can keep Australians safe and our region secure. That is our No. 1 priority. It's also worth mentioning that this is the single biggest investment in Australia's defence capability in history.</p><p>AUKUS is a key pillar of our national security policy, and it is really good to see that there is bipartisanship on this matter. But again what we hear from the Australian Greens is talking down our national security and talking down Australia's standing in the Indo-Pacific, rather than actually working with colleagues in this place on how we can have a much more secure, safe region. What we hear from the Australian Greens is that they are anti jobs, anti defence and anti national security, yet they are pro misinformation. That is their No. 1 priority—to try to spread mistruths within the Australian community in the lead-up to the federal election.</p><p>The fact that AUKUS is a key transformative matter for Australia's defence policy and for enhancing our capability is something that is really important for future strategic challenges. It's not just about developing capabilities to acquire and sustain conventionally armed nuclear powered submarines; it's also, as I mentioned earlier, about jobs, which are at the front and centre of this policy. The AUKUS plan for Australia will see around 20,000 direct jobs created here in Australia, right across the industry, in many places, like South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and other parts of the country.</p> <p class="speaker">David Shoebridge</p><p>In New South Wales?</p> <p class="speaker">Raff Ciccone</p><p>The whole supply chain, Senator Shoebridge. Yes, New South Wales will also benefit. All those small SMEs in defence industry will benefit greatly. But again Senator Shoebridge is talking down the industry and Defence. He is talking down all the fine men and women who put on that proud uniform every single day, defending our national security, like the men and women who were here in the public gallery earlier today. All those individuals who are spending millions of dollars—</p> <p class="speaker">Dorinda Cox</p><p>Excuse me, Senator Ciccone. Senator McGrath?</p> <p class="speaker">James McGrath</p><p>On a point of order in terms of the interjections from Senator Shoebridge: Senator Shoebridge was heard in silence. Senator Ciccone has had constant interjections since he commenced speaking. While he does not need a member of the opposition to come to his defence, I would ask that you call Senator Shoebridge to order, because interjections are disorderly.</p> <p class="speaker">Dorinda Cox</p><p>Thank you, Senator McGrath. Before I allocate the call, I do want to remind senators that they have also had their opportunity to make their contributions. If they need an adjournment speech, they should take up that opportunity.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
-
|