David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 June 2026:

The AUKUS agreement and its implications for Australia's environment, safety and independence, with particular reference to:

(a) the advice and analysis provided to the Government before and following the AUKUS agreement;

(b) the implications of AUKUS and the acquisition of nuclear submarines for militarisation and stability in the region;

(c) the implications of the AUKUS agreement for Australia's foreign policy and defence policy including the projected role of AUKUS submarines in defending Australia;

(d) the capacity of the United States of America (USA) and United Kingdom (UK) nuclear submarine industries to provide Australia with either existing Virginia class submarines or future SSN-AUKUS submarines;

(e) the impact on the balance of Australia's defence capacity given the scale of resources required for AUKUS nuclear submarine acquisitions and procurement;

(f) the impact of the AUKUS agreement on Australia's international obligations and adherence to international law;

(g) the impact on Australia's defence in the event the UK and/or the USA cannot provide the submarines envisaged by the AUKUS project and considerations given to an alternative plan;

(h) the management and storage of nuclear waste and its impact on First Nations land and communities; and

(i) any other related matters.

I understand that the government is going to viciously oppose this; seek to gag it, perhaps; and end it before even having a debate on a referral. That, I think, highlights how scared the government is, how scared Labor is, about giving the public the chance to have its voice heard on AUKUS, giving independent experts in defence and security the chance to provide their opinions and their considerations of just how dangerous and reckless AUKUS is, and also about permitting the rational assessment of what is in Australia's national interest. Of course they're scared of a merits based debate on this. Of course they're scared about giving the public a right to be heard, because Labor know there is so little support for their pro-Donald-Trump ties to the United States war plans, which they picked up, having taken them out of the microwave, when handed to them by Scott Morrison.

You only have to look at the most recent polling of the Australian public when it comes to support for tying us to the United States and Donald Trump. We've had Defence Minister Marles repeatedly talk about how much he loves the United States—at times, you wonder who he got elected by—and how his shared values that he has with the United States and Australia's shared values with the United States are one of his reasons for tying himself, Australia and our Defence Force to Donald Trump. But, of course, polling released today from the Australia Institute shows only eight per cent of people strongly agree with the proposition that the defence minister has when he talks of shared values with the United States.

The Australian people want this parliament to ask tough questions about defence. They want us to ask: 'Will we ever get nuclear submarines? Surely there would be something be to do with $375 billion than invest in nuclear submarines we'll never get from either the UK or the US.' But instead of listening to the public and hearing those calls for transparency, we have a Labor government that is going down the warpath. Indeed, we've got a Labor government that seems to be so taken up with its love of weapons, with its love of war plans, that we have statements, including from the defence minister, that surely must trouble even some Labor backbenchers.

As we're having this debate here, there is a weapons expo happening in Sydney, the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition. It's an international weapons fair paid for by Chris Minns's Labor government of New South Wales and also by the defence department as funded by Prime Minister Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles. Labor, state and federal, is funding an international weapons expo happening right now in Sydney. Of course, they've invited Israeli weapons manufacturers, manufacturers who have tested weapons on Palestinians, to the ultimate shame of Labor.

What did Labor Defence Minister Marles say at the opening of that weapons fair? It shows their attitude and why Labor is so keen to take us down a path of more weapons and more war, tying us in to US military plans. He kicked it off by saying:

I know that Admiral Hammond has literally been salivating—

These are Defence Minister Marles's words—

about the prospect of the Sea Power conference this year, to have so many chiefs of Navy congregated in one spot is a kind of version of Navy Disneyland.

Instead of seeing a collection of international arms dealers with weapons designed to kill as many people as efficiently as possible as a threat to human safety or as a moment in which you could reflect upon the anxiety of a global weapons fair, Defence Minister Richard Marles sees it as a Navy Disneyland.

He goes on. He then starts waxing lyrical about how much loves weapons and how much he loves machines designed to kill as many people as possible. You couldn't make this up, so I'll just read onto the record what Richard Marles said—