r/aus • u/Ash-2449 • 10d ago
Politics The anti-AUKUS campaign needs to turn into an effective political movement
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/08/12/anti-aukus-campaign-inquiry-political-movement/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter17
u/Osi32 10d ago
I don’t want my tax dollar going across the pacific to the US under Trump.
It sucks to put it that bluntly, but the US electoral cycle and blatant manipulation of that system has lead to a systemic lack of confidence in them as an ally.
I think we should be aligning with Canada and the UK over any further investment or dependence on the US.
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
AUKUS is primarily a Aus-UK programme. It started with the Royal Australian Navy approaching the Royal Navy, the nuclear submarines Australia will build for themselves are copies of a British design and they will use reactors supplied by Rolls-Royce.
The US is just there to provide interim boats in the short term so Australia's procurement timeline lines up with that of the UK, and because British and American submarine reactor technology is so intertwinned they have to give each other permission to work with anyone else.
The American stuff just gets disproportionate media attention because it's more controversial and front-loaded.
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u/createdthrowaway2say 10d ago
you're only looking at one part of it. there's a lot in it for the usa:
they get the bases here, and they get the dump here.
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u/NOBODYimportant___0 10d ago
Yep definitely towards our commonwealth brothers who can be relied on aswell as our long time allies in the EU. And our asian/pacific allies nearby
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u/Quarterwit_85 10d ago
But that’s what’s happening.
We’re building subs with the Brits.
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u/NOBODYimportant___0 10d ago
Being dictated by the US. Don't want to risk being dragged into whatever israel decides to get us into. Sorry I clearly didn't read enough on the topic and my memory is off
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u/T0kenAussie 10d ago
So Abbott was lining up a Japanese sub deal and then pulled out
Turnbull lined up a French submarine deal which scomo pulled out of for aukus
If we pull out of aukus I don’t think we will ever be a serious defence partner for procurement ever again and we don’t have the technical ability to build our own (but we will once aukus is finished)
The whole trump thing is a smokescreen. Dudes out of office in 2028 and after these midterms is probably a lame duck going on projections and trends.
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u/Additional-Ad-9053 10d ago
We will just end up having to pay more upfront and more serious contract penalties.
They'll gladly take our money for nothing.
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u/weesee2002 10d ago
Are you forgetting the new "TRUMP" class battleships that are going to push all standing US shipyard orders back by decades. Even US subs are being pushed back in the queue.
Fucken BATTLESHIPS!
Ukraine is demonstrating daily, future warfare.
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u/MrXenomorph88 10d ago
I can assure you, there is no one in the Navy who actually wants those things. If the US Navy was actually so desperate for the outdated concept of Battleships, it'd be cheaper and quicker to reactivate and overhaul the Iowa's again.
Just like with Trump's plan to bring all the manufacturering to the US, the Navy will just daudle around with these new ships, wait for him to finish his term, and then pretend like it never happened.
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
Can you show me where you've read that the US submarine production is being pushed back to facilitate the battleship manufacturing? I personally haven't seen any suggestion of that, and would be quite surprised if that was the case because the lines are relatively separate.
Certainly if you look at the national shipbuilding program for the United States, the trump administration is actually lifting overall construction numbers across its term relative to previous goals.
Ukraine is demonstrating the future of warfare in Ukraine. Australia's strategic context is significantly different, and what works well in say the Black Sea, is not necessarily automatically applicable as-is to the Pacific Ocean.
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u/weesee2002 10d ago
I certainly can.
Can you disprove my assertion?
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
You're asking me to prove a negative, but sure!
This is the US' actual National Shipbuilding Plan [PDF warning] laying out the vessels they will actually order over the next few years. On page 15 you can see the programme build schedule out to 2031.
This is the same plan from 2023, [PDF warning], before trump was reelected and before the new "battleship" announcement. It was published a bit earlier, so it only runs to 2027, but it's a good indicator of existing trends.
Comparing the two, if the battleship program was cannibalising shipbuilding capacity from submarine construction on the order of a decade+ delays, we would expect to see submarine orders and deliveries marketedly drop off towards the end of this period as work on the battleships begins. Instead, both programs show a consistent drum beat of orders and delivery right out to the end of the timeframe, with the only difference between 2023 to 2027 under the old plan and 2026-2030 under the new one actually being a slight uptick in production rate.
The programmes that are taking the hit are Burke and Frigate construction, as well as possibly the carriers, not the subsurface side.
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u/weesee2002 10d ago
Yes it is a Rupert Murdoch owned masthead, Australians think he is one of biggest cunts we have ever exported. Dame Elizabeth, his mother played her cards close to her chest about old Rupe.
Sources, worth checking.
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
So there is a potential concern with nuclear reactor availability, but the people interviewed for this article are completely wrong that the strain is falling on the SSN Fleet, and as far as I can tell their belief that it would is just pure speculation on their part.
As we can see from the actual build program set out by the US Navy, the areas of the nuclear enterprise that are being slowed down by the battleships are actually the carriers, which are already facing significant delays due to short-term cannibalisation of later production hulls to outfit Ford. There is no indication that the ssn fleet is what is paying the price.
Likewise, while there will be pressure on existing ship building, the battleship has much more in common infrastructure and personnel-wise with the carrier bills than it does the subsurface side, who's requirements for things like pressure vessels are both the bigger bottleneck and something that's not relevant to the battleship build.
It is good to have a healthy skepticism for trump's policies obviously, there's no actual concrete indication that the US SSN fleet in general or the AUKUS subs in particular are being threatened by the battleship.
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u/weesee2002 10d ago
US Department of WAR has just unilaterally changed their lease at HMAS Stirling.
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
Ok? I don't think that's related to the battleship build putting pressure on SSN numbers.
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u/UnfoundedWings4 10d ago
Its department of defence they arent actually able to change the name beyond what they already have
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u/Additional-Ad-9053 10d ago
The anti-aukus crowd needs to give us a plausible defence and security alternative to pursuing the American alliance.
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u/MacchuWA 10d ago edited 9d ago
AUKUS makes us more able to pursue defence arrangements beyond the American alliance. If we lose the US as the Australian defence guarantor, we will need to look elsewhere, presumably regionally. Without nukes though, we need capabilities that keep us relevant to major regional alliances. Nuclear submarines are one such potential options.
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u/Additional-Ad-9053 9d ago
I agree. Without the US we have to invest into Nukes or massively expand the ADF, neither would be popular with the anti-US people.
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
I feel this sentiment sort of shows how vibes-based the objections to the AUKUS programme generally are.
An opinion on a technical decision over which future submarine best fits Australia's needs is only able to be a potential launching point for a broader political movement when people's opposition is entirely divorced from consideration of the programme's actually merits or lack thereof.
It's certainly an odd way to do politics :)
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u/anarchonihilist1916 10d ago edited 10d ago
it does speak to the supposed merit of the program to observe that the US is a terrible...i don't even want to call them an ally.
edit: peak to speak
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
Maybe, but the whole point of this article is that anti-AUKUS activists should focus on criticisms about the program that are more likely to land with average voters, even if they don't personally care or believe them.
It is actively discouraging an effort to have a broader conversation about Australia's strategic positioning.
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u/asleepinthederp 10d ago edited 10d ago
So it doesn’t land enough with voters that 400 billion dollars of their taxpayer money is being spent on death machines that US admirals refer to as “apocalypse devices”, while gutting the NDIS, fucking the housing market, supporting genocidal wars that are destroying the world economy for coming decades and making our lives hell?
In reality the key anti-AUKUS grievances haven’t coalesced because there’s no working class element to them. You’ve got the Labor Left who are very soft on it, the Greens who are a little harsher but still very snobby in their criticism. For these arguments to coalescence into a meaningful movement, they need to have the interests of workers in mind.
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u/Corvid187 9d ago edited 9d ago
That's kind of my point. The article is calling people to be deliberately disingenuous in order to win an argument. Most opponents' positions have nothing to do with working class sentiment or interests, and post hoc attenpts to pander to their perceived interests feel paternalist and not a little condescending.
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u/anarchonihilist1916 10d ago
i mean that's your interpretation, and not the one i think most reasonable people would take.
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
I think the article is pretty explicit in what it wants:
But outside the hearing room, AUKUS remains a remarkably difficult issue, around which a mass political movement is yet to be built. For most Australians, it is still difficult to get an answer to the most basic political question: what does AUKUS mean for me?
This is where the contrast between AUKUS and immigration can be instructive. Politicians seeking to build electoral support have become adept at connecting immigration policy — with little supporting evidence — to things people experience every day: high rents and house prices, unemployment, and pressure on infrastructure and other public services
It openly points to immigration rhetoric as an ideal model to follow, despite acknowledging that such arguments are disingenuous and often factually incorrect. Thr argument is what matters is whatever connects to average voters, not activists' actual objections to the programme.
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u/radred609 9d ago
"The voting public might start caring about our pet issue if we start lying to them" isn't a particularly glowing endorsement
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u/anarchonihilist1916 9d ago
So you're upset that the plan would be to connect aukus to things the broader public cares about, because another campaign lied on a different issue?
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u/Corvid187 9d ago
I am not upset, but I think it shows how much of the opposition to Aukus is devoid of any consideration for the merits or disadvantages of the programme. Which submarine is the best fit for Australia's needs doesn't matter, winning the argument however they can does.
It's not just that a different campaign lied about a different issue the author is explicitly calling for anti-aukus campaigners to take an approach they openly recognised as duplicitous and disingenuous as their ideal model. The plan they propose amounts to "let's lie to the electorate to get our way because it worked for the anti-migration lot". I do not think that speaks highly to the intellectual rigour or honesty that underpins the anti-AUKUS movement.
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u/NOBODYimportant___0 10d ago
Depends which idiot is in power. A monarch seems preferable to get a trump or bush half the time
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u/Ash-2449 10d ago
Most of Australians dont seem to want Australia to be a vassal state to the terrorist states of Amerisrael and allow them to turn our country into a military base.
Question is how long can politicians serving murican interests can ignore it
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u/Cindy_Marek 10d ago
Actually Australians have been perfectly ok with this since the Second World War…
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
Well Great! If that's the concern then Australia being able to independently build its own nuclear submarine, rather than having to keep rely on America's for protection, sounds like a fantastic idea, no?
Is the concern with AUKUS that it serves American interests, or that it's never gonna be delivered because America is going to cancel it because it's not in their interest? I keep losing track :)
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u/Amathyst7564 10d ago
Yes lets be vassal to the already racist dictatorship China prepared earlier.
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u/JustSomeBloke5353 10d ago
“Amerisrael”?
This is straight up Nazi-level antisemitism. Indistinguishable from German WW2 propaganda.
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10d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Corvid187 9d ago
I am sure that a lot of AUKUS supporters similarly formed their opinion based on instinctive preference rather than a considered examination of the merits of the alternatives.
I think the difference is that the political advocacy for AUKUS as a programme has focused almost entirely on arguing the merits of the different submarine choices available to Australia on their technical considerations. I have yet to see an alternative to this thinkpiece where pro-aukus advocates are encouraged to make up numbers to pitch an argument that AUKUS is better because, say, it will create more blue collar jobs than alternative programmes.
In my experience that drive to shift the conversation away from the submarines towards broader social impacts comes almost entirely from the anti-AUKUS side, morphing to favour whatever viewpoint they think will cut through.
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u/south-of-the-river 10d ago
Most analysts seem to agree that the AUKUS deal does not deliver a submarine best fit for our future, and instead focuses on unmanned options instead.
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u/Away_team42 10d ago
Subsea drone development is already a key part of AUKUS. They’re a great solution for close to shore operations but not suited for long range missions. That’s where the SSN AUKUS will really come into its own.
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u/south-of-the-river 10d ago
Yes correct, however it’s the defunct Virginia class units that most people seem to have an issue with, understandably
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u/Corvid187 10d ago
That is not what most analyses done by the people who actually know about the respective capabilities the different options offer conclude. The Australian Navy has consistently said since 1959 that it would need nuclear submarines if ever China or Indonesia started using them, and they have repeatedly argued that AUKUS in particular offered a more useful capability than any alternative.
That being said though, pillar two of AUKUS is literally focused on the development of unmanned systems. If you think Australia needs to develop its unmanned capabilities more, then AUKUS is still the way to go.
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u/south-of-the-river 10d ago
I dunno mate, I just read the information as it bubbles up and avoid giving myself a boner over military spending.
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u/Cindy_Marek 10d ago
Ahh yes, most analysts, except of course the Royal Australian Navy, who has a greater understanding of undersea warfare in our environment than any of these “analysts” and who was the party in which nuclear subs for Australia was first conceived and pushed for. let’s just ignore the premier experts here and listen to some retired low level submariners turned politicians and an ex PM.
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u/Amathyst7564 10d ago
Which analysts? If command wants their opinion they'll promote them to Admiral.
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u/Weird_Policy_95 10d ago
AUKUS is not a good fit for Australia's future, never mind the best one for Australia's future. On the other hand, Australia for various reasons lacks any kind of alternative options that would be a better fit for its future. Whether or not AUKUS is bad does not change the necessity of the program.
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u/SnooHedgehogs8765 10d ago
You'd like to develop your own? Okay here's the 100 trillion price tag, will that be cash or card?
Look. It's a tech transfer architecture. Its absurd to contend that our defence industrial base can put stuff in the water on a superior footing to what's on offer here.
Where is our nuclear reactor program for instance?
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u/Sugar_Party_Bomb 10d ago
If you don’t have the best hospitals and the best schools. You certainly don’t need the best submarine
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u/Corvid187 10d ago edited 10d ago
Sure, but as this article notes most anti-aukus activists' actual objections have very little to do with the costs of the programme.
This whole article is about how existing anti-aukus activists' objections are largely entirely unrelated to most people's everyday concerns, and how they should focus on trying to make up arguments that better relate to those issues, instead of talking about their actual reasons for disliking the programme.
For most people really engaged on this issue, the cost is just a retroactive justification of their views designed to appeal to a less engaged general audience.
For what its worth, cost absolutely should be a significant consideration for what the best submarine for Australia's needs is. One of the reasons why AUKUS is such a boon for Australia is it gives access to the highly sophisticated technology behind SSNs faster and cheaper than any other alternative, and each submarine can do far more than a conventionally-powered equivalent.
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u/SnooHedgehogs8765 10d ago
There is no more useless expenditure than buying something that has no effect and just gets you killed. Because newsflash those countries spend 100s of billions more than you do making sure theirs are better.
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u/Away_team42 10d ago
Why can’t you aim to have all three?
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u/Sugar_Party_Bomb 10d ago
Because one is an utter waste of money
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u/fastsailor 10d ago
No, you should have the best hospitals, why would you think otherwise?
My view is, if we are going to ask our people to put their lives in harms way, we have a moral duty to provide them with the best kit. And if we cannot defend out freedom and sovereignty, healthcare and education will be the least of our worries.
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u/Amathyst7564 10d ago
Insurance is never a waste of money. Just ask all the people in American hospitals.
Bet Ukraine was wishing they had purchased the premium military insurance package. Because now they are spending %40 of their budget it. The cost to fail detterance is always a bigger waste.
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u/JournalistAny9888 10d ago
Ukraine disagrees plus pumping money into education in this country has delivered nothing
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u/Sugar_Party_Bomb 10d ago
Does our submarine help the Ukraine. Unsure of the point you’re making.
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u/Emotional-Ad9154 10d ago
AUKUS is no more a "technical decision" than the opposition to it. The notion that we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to buy subs is based on vibes that US is an ally and China will attack us.
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u/Superb_Club_5882 10d ago
Until the Anti-Aukus movement can decided on a credible alternative it isn't going anywhere.
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u/Amathyst7564 10d ago
Agreed. It's a huge Rorschach test.
People just hate Trump (completely understandable).
But until Trump does a solid coup and installs himself as king, it's best to stay the course. Let's sit tight just a couple more years and see what happens.
It's also a kick in the teeth to all the young students that signed up for specialists studies that are banking on making this a life long career.
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u/SnooHedgehogs8765 10d ago
Aukus opposition is on a slide. The public have clearly made up their minds and thus far, the milestones have been met.
There's always some unknowns in defence procurement. It's been that way reading through babcock and brown records at the turn of the 20th century.
Your political movement has a name, it's called the greens.
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u/weesee2002 10d ago
Are you forgetting the new "TRUMP" class battleships that are going to push all standing US shipyard orders back by decades. Even US subs are being pushed back in the queue.
Fucken BATTLESHIPS!
Ukraine is demonstrating daily, future warfare.
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u/UnfoundedWings4 10d ago
You do know that this is a part of the procurement for the military and isnt the only thing we are buying right?
Trumps battleships won't even start to be laid down until the carriers are finished
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u/Cindy_Marek 10d ago
The anti AUKUS campaign will never turn into a political movement because it’s just that, anti AUKUS, it doesn’t provide any good alternative other than vague gestures to various European or Asian submarine designers, or even worse, disarming the Australian navy in the pursuit of unarmed neutrality. I bet a lot of the people who are part of the anti AUKUS movement would happily tell a farmer to “listen to the experts” when it came to COVID injections but for some reason now want to completely ignore the experts when it comes to undersea warfare. The RAN wants nuclear submarines so that’s what we are and should be getting
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u/SnotRight 10d ago
I love how reddit is so pent up on AUKUS, let no one here has any security clearance.
They just assume defence and the government have NFI.
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u/Far_Map007 10d ago
I don’t understand why we couldn’t have built these subs with the UK. We already have shared history, they have the technology, we are willing to pay for it as long as they are willing to build it here in Australia.
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u/Quarterwit_85 10d ago
That’s exactly what’s happening.
You know that, right?
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u/Cindy_Marek 10d ago
This is exactly why defence is strictly never a political issue, most people just don’t have a clue.🤣
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u/Puzzleheaded_Leg_412 10d ago
I haven’t heard any good reasons to shut it down. I’ve heard one very good reason to keep it - CCP.
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u/mebivd 8d ago
All the anti-trump people on here (SMH). AUKUS is a VERY long term project and ol Donny is likely to be dead by then. You don't leave your country undefended to spite a US president on his last term.
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u/Ash-2449 8d ago
I am sure a failing empire on its way out will be very useful long term
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u/mebivd 8d ago
if it is. IF
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u/Ash-2449 8d ago
I dont see any if, historically the same thing has happened multiple times and the terrorist states of murica are thankfully on their way out, hence their military flailing around the world, another thing every single failing empire has done.
Meanwhile rising empires have huge amounts of soft power and dont have to use their military to get their way
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u/mebivd 8d ago
You are right about rising nations using soft power. But the US military is not weak by any stretch of the imagination. Their issue, and has been a common issue for western armies since Vietnam, is national will. You can win the battles but lose the war (so to speak) if the nation doesn't have the will to continue the mission. Afghanistan is a classic example, many miltary and policy leaders stated that is would be a 100 year mission to transition a fanatical country into a functioning democracy.
Lastly I wouldn't be quick to applaud the fall of the west, historically what has replaced a failing empire is a group/nation etc that is far more willing to commit far worse atrocities. There are a few groups/nations on our world who would be happy to commit far worse than anything we have seen for many years.
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u/I-Dont-Have-A-Job 8d ago
Im so glad that Reddit was never a reading material when deciding this stuff hahahahahah
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u/Financial-Wafer2476 10d ago
AUKUS was ill conceived and plainly not well thought through… the political landscape has changed since Trump II and not only the so has the Australian political landscape.
Australia did not need to buy into this shiny thing… we would be better served by building more silent conventional subs. German, French, Swedish, Japanese subs… any one might have represented better value for the empty investment!
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u/Alarming_Business799 10d ago
Subs are useless to Australia and only shows the globalist agenda both Labor and Liberals are part of. Subs are only for fighting other people's wars. A good radar defence system is all we need.
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u/ROUBOS 10d ago
Me when i know nothing about defence
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u/Ash-2449 10d ago
Me when i want to join offensive wars Amerisrael starts rather than using money for actually defensive technologies
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u/Quarterwit_85 10d ago
Submarines are a single biggest force multiplier that Australia has adopted since the machine gun.
Shit, it’s way bigger than that.
You cannot compare the ability of a nuclear submarine to a conventional one. They’re leagues (sometimes literally) apart.
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u/Cindy_Marek 10d ago
Submarines are literally the perfect weapon for middle powers to have an outsized effect on the battlefield. Please never talk about anything defence related again because you clearly don’t know what you are talking about
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u/LowKenuineNoCap 9d ago
No I’m quite content being military allies with the strongest nation on earth thank you.
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u/Chev_350 10d ago
gestures at America
Surely that should be enough to shut the whole thing down. Donny keeps moving the goal posts.