Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

AUKUS is set to rob Australians of $368 billion by the time it delivers—or, more likely, doesn't deliver. That's equivalent to over $13,000 taken from every Australian alive today—money that will go straight into the pockets of the US and UK weapons manufacturers. For what? Not a single guarantee that Australia will ever have full control of these submarines or ever have submarines at all. There's no guarantee they'll be built, and definitely no guarantee that they will make us safer. AUKUS isn't a defence strategy; it's a blank cheque to the American military industrial complex signed by the Australian taxpayers. That's why this should be referred to inquiry. The Australian people deserve to know exactly what they are paying for and what they're giving up.

We are told that this is about security, but the question is: security for who? Over the past fortnight, I have raised in this chamber the crisis facing community primary health, with bulk-billing GP services in my home state closing their doors due to a lack of government funding intervention. I've raised the housing crisis that's pushing families to sleep in cars and young people to give up on the dream of ever owning a home. I've heard from survivors of extreme weather events. Just today Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action were talking about the empty climate adaptation plan that was handed down with no funding attached, while floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves grow worse every single year. Talented early childhood education workers have sat in my office and told me there is no secured ongoing funding for the Early Years Support program that provides high-impact early childhood and development services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families across this country.

Prime Minister Albanese, I have an entire shopping list of things we could fix together with even a fraction of the money we are throwing at AUKUS. But what are we hearing? Nothing. Nothing about these critical services that Australians are crying out for, and yet we somehow have billions of dollars for nuclear submarines. Imagine if we spent that money on what actually keeps people secure, supported and cared for.

For $368 billion, we could fully fund universal early childhood education—multiple times over, in fact—providing every family in this country with free, high-quality care for every single child. I know there has been a resounding endorsement of that in New York today. We could properly pay educators what they are worth and raise quality standards across the board, improving educational outcomes and letting families participate fully in the workforce. That is what real security looks like—children learning, parents working, if they so choose, and families thriving. The Prime Minister himself committed to a legacy of universal child care, but frankly he has made more progress in securing photo opportunities with Donald Trump than he has in moving towards universal early education, a goal that parents, families and educators are so desperately calling for.

We could build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes, not just for American military personnel, as was Labor's first housing move in this new parliament, but for the everyday Australians, teachers, nurses and care workers who make this country function. We could invest in properly funding community health and properly building climate adaptation resilience. We could invest further in clean energy and in the programs that actually make people's lives better and this planet safer. Instead, this government has chosen to pour our collective wealth into a project that fuels an arms race and shackles our sovereignty to the whims of an increasingly unstable United States.

Prime Minister Albanese's meeting with President Trump was sold as a sign of strong friendship, but what it really showed is how much Australia is willing to give away for a photo opportunity. AUKUS doesn't even require the US to deliver these submarines. There is no binding commitment and no guarantee that the US will even have the industrial capacity to build them. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has offered Trump dibs over our critical minerals—the very minerals that are supposed to support our clean energy transition. Australia's critical minerals should be fuelling a green future, powering solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, not fuelling the US military, one of the world's biggest polluters. Instead of leading on renewable technology, the government is binding us to a climate denialist agenda, where profits for billionaires and weapons manufacturers come before people and planet. That is not sovereignty; that is surrender.

Let's be very clear about what AUKUS really is. It is a one-sided deal that commits us to decades of US military ambitions in the Pacific. It increases the risk of conflict. It locks Australia into the United States and United Kingdom's nuclear technology and military plans, leaving us dependent on their decisions. It does not guarantee Australia any real control or oversight over how that technology is used. If the US or UK change their level of cooperation at any point, our ability to operate these submarines and our defence capability would be directly affected. That is not sovereignty. It is dependency, locked in for half a century at least.

We are being to surrender our sovereignty, our independence and our public wealth for a security promise that exists only on paper. But true security doesn't come from submarines or missiles. It comes from peaceful diplomacy and strong democratic values. It comes from stable communities, healthy and supported families and a planet that we can actually live on. Australians do not want their safety to depend on Donald Trump, a man who ridicules world leaders, escalates conflicts and mocks the idea of peace and climate action, or his administration. They don't want to see their taxes funding the US war machine while their local health clinics close. They do not want to see billions of dollars spent on submarines while they can't afford rent, groceries or medication. They want leadership that invests in people and planet, not in war. It's time to bring some transparency, scrutiny and sanity back into this debate via an inquiry, and it's time to put people, not weapons, at the heart of Australia's security.