Defence eyes school children in nuclear industry push

Against a tide of deepening discontent with AUKUS among Labor rank-and-file, which may prove the undoing of the security pact, defence appears to be quietly clothing the supposed benefits of the contentious submarine deal in neutral terms to school children. 

According to a seemingly anodyne media statement released with little fanfare this week, defence has introduced a nationwide “nuclear-powered submarine propulsion challenge” in high schools to reveal, among other things, how nuclear propulsion “makes submarines more capable”.  

The deputy chief of the navy, Rear Admiral Jonathan Earley, said in the media release it was hoped the curriculum would unmask how STEM subjects apply in the “real world”, thereby encouraging students to embark on careers as “submariners, engineers and technicians”. 

It’s unclear, however, whether the curriculum will attach equal, if any, weight to science that conversely shows rapid evolutions in detection technologies will render submarines of all kinds obsolete by the 2050s or earlier.

According to an analysis undertaken by a multidisciplinary team at the ANU’s National Security College, it is “very likely or likely” such technology, which includes submersible drones, new weapons systems and improvements in the detection of chemical, acoustic and infrared signatures, will cause the oceans of the near-future to be “broadly transparent” in coming years. 

“[Submarines] produce more than sound,” the researchers pointed out in a recent article. “As they pass through water, they disturb it and change its physical, chemical and biological signatures.”

“They even disturb Earth’s magnetic field — and nuclear subs unavoidably emit radiation. Science is learning to detect all these changes.” 

The navy’s school curriculum push comes amid new revelations regarding the extent of deception and subterfuge engaged in by former prime minister Scott Morrison to secure the AUKUS agreement. 

In an interview with journalist Richard Kerbaj for an upcoming book seen by newswire Agence France-Presse, Morrison explained that the broad strokes of the AUKUS pact were arrived at over the course of two-year-long secret negotiations beginning in late 2019. 

He did not, however, concede that this secrecy and his failure to inform French President Emmanuel Macron of his intention to renege on the French submarine deal (until the eleventh hour) was tantamount to having lied.  

“Not telling him is not the same as lying to him,” Morrison said. 

“Our strategy was that if we are going to do this, we can’t let it lead to the French knowing — in case that damages the French deal. So, we had to build Chinese walls — pardon the pun — around our discussions,” he added, explaining he was concerned anger on the part of the French might move the UK and the US to pull the AUKUS deal.  

Under the French deal secured by the Turnbull government, Australia had agreed to purchase a dozen conventional diesel-powered submarines from French shipbuilder Naval Group.

Morrison’s decision to cancel the contract famously prompted Macron to accuse him of lying, with the dispute ultimately costing taxpayers in the order of $830 million to settle. 

Under the AUKUS pact, Australia has committed up to $500 billion for both the purchase of three second-hand US Virginia-class submarines early next decade and the construction of eight nuclear-powered submarines, with the latter projected to be complete by the 2060s.

But the Department of Defence has a long history of procurement failures and cost overruns, and is facing the added headwinds of a personnel “crisis”, having failed to meet recruitment targets for several years with shortages emerging in engineering, intelligence, cyber and communications. 

In a heated exchange during May-June Senate estimates, Greens Senator David Shoebridge accused defence chief General Angus Campbell, defence secretary Greg Moriarty and Major General Wade Stothart, who heads defence recruitment, of lacking a plan to increase the defence workforce to the size required to deliver AUKUS. 

“What’s the genius plan that you’ve got that’s going to turn around a decade of failure in this space? What’s the plan?” he said in a line of questions that referenced the billions earmarked for nuclear submarines, frigates and missile systems.  

“The evidence would suggest that [defence has] no capable plan of delivering anything like the personnel required to operate those.”

In answer, Stothart explained that though it was a “challenging environment” for defence, its market research had revealed “young Australians” maintain a “high propensity to consider service in the Australian Defence Force”. 

Campbell, for his part, refused to be drawn on whether he was responsible for failures in recruitment, saying he is “accountable to the minister” for his performance, not Parliament. 

Against this thorny backdrop, Labor sources have informed Crikey that a widespread rank-and-file movement is marshalling to oppose AUKUS at Labor’s national conference in August. 

“There is a real union and growing rank-and-file opposition to AUKUS,” said Marcus Strom, who formerly worked as a press secretary for Labor minister Ed Husic. 

“The Labor movement knows it’s a bad and dangerous policy that is antithetical to Labor values, both in terms of the obscene costs, the absolute danger of dragging us into a potential war with China and blowing open the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.” 

He added that defence’s submarine school curriculum drive, for what it’s worth, showed defence was “trying to create a nuclear industry in Australia” — a scenario he likened to “playing roulette with the future”.