AUKUS is a debacle, but the idiot protectionism of its critics is bizarre

Where are the workers coming from? Let’s say it again: where are the workers coming from?

It’s a question that should be asked every day and at every stage of any debate about Australian industry, including Defence. The unemployment rate is 3.7%, the employment-to-population ratio is a smidge below all-time highs, the participation rate is sitting at 66.7%, and there are labour shortages across a host of critical occupations (the latest — a shortage of nearly 100,000 in residential construction). But idiot protectionism is still rampant.

Last week the government announced it was handing $4.6 billion over a decade to the Brits to help them expand capacity to provide components for the AUKUS submarines (the new ones, not the Dodgy Bros second-hand ones from the Americans that will arrive in the 2030s). That’s separate from the $4.53 billion we’ll give to the Americans to expand their production lines (which, like the Brits, also suffer from workforce shortages).

The announcement unleashed a strange collection of critics. Social media, inevitably, lit up. The Greens’ (normally sensible) David Shoebridge went completely, erm, overboard, tweeting “AUKUS is bleeding Australia dry“. Barnaby Joyce claimed it was “beyond belief” and that we should be developing our own nuclear industry. One of Sky News’ menagerie of right-wingers demanded of Defence Minister Richard Marles, “We’re paying the UK to do our nuclear work for us. Why not just reverse your nuclear policy and do it here?”

Nothing has changed in the fundamentally flawed nature of AUKUS. It remains the most expensive announceable in Australian political history, a stunt by a desperate Scott Morrison to wedge Labor that failed miserably, at a cost of what will become hundreds of billions of dollars. No rationale for these bespoke nuclear vessels — for which we are unlikely to ever have sufficient crews or maintenance workers — has ever been articulated beyond the equivalent of “China bad”. The unfortunate Marles, a man who’d be out of his depth in a rapidly drying puddle, has at no stage explained why Australia needs nuclear submarines.

But if we’re going to obtain such boats, paying other countries to make them is by far the cheaper option, given they already have the infrastructure, workforces, regulatory standards and expertise — however strained they may be currently. The only thing wrong with the AUKUS procurement plan is that we’re insisting on assembling some of the boats here, rather than outsourcing the entire job.

If there’s a strategic rationale for nuclear-power submarines, then the most efficient method of sourcing them would have been to ask the French to switch back to their nuclear submarine on which the now-abandoned Naval Group contract was based, and build them all in Cherbourg.

Presumably the protectionist critics of AUKUS would like Australia to attempt to poach a limited talent base from the Americans and the British to move to Adelaide, with suitable remuneration and relocation expenses, to commence work in an entirely new industry for which we have no expertise, infrastructure or regulatory framework. How much more would that cost taxpayers, and how much longer would that take for boats that won’t even get wet until our kids are running the country?

The same idiot protectionism can be seen on a smaller scale in the witless beat-up by the Nine press today over the purchase by a private Sydney company of Chinese-made buses. That prompted The Sydney Morning Herald — deliberately conflating the actions of a private company with the NSW government — to attack the Minns government for failing to honour its election promise to build trains and buses here. (How Chris Minns and co were supposed to establish an entirely new heavy manufacturing industry in 12 months is another mystery.)

In essence, the Herald wants NSW taxpayers to spend a lot of money building things that are far cheaper to buy offshore, in order to drag workers away from other, critical industries like building homes, caring for our seniors, cybersecurity, providing mental health services, looking after our kids and constructing crucial energy infrastructure and other projects suffering from workforce shortages. All to — what? Boast that NSW builds buses? Make NSW a bus superpower? Become the biggest train builder in the southern hemisphere?

The stupidity is breathtaking. Where are the workers coming from? You want buses? Trains? Nuclear power plants? Nuclear submarines? You want to become a renewable superpower? Explain where the workers are coming from.

Should Australia be paying the US and UK to build our subs? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.