‘We are completely dependent on what happens in the US’: former PM lashes Aukus submarine deal
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has lashed the Aukus pillar 1 submarine deal, arguing the US is producing half as many as needed and Australia has “abandoned our sovereignty in terms of submarines”.
Speaking to ABC RN about the issue, Turnbull said:
The US navy is trying to increase its submarine fleet actually to meet the rapid growth in the Chinese navy, in particular [with] submarines. To do that to meet its own requirements, it needs to double its current production of Virginia-class submarines. And so, of course, in order to transfer submarines to Australia in the 2030s, three and possibly five under the Aukus pillar 1 deal, they’ve got to increase their production even more.
Now, right at the moment, they’re not only producing about half as many submarines as they believe they need, but they also are not able to maintain the submarines they have …
What does that mean for Australia? It means because the Morrison government, adopted by Albanese, has basically abandoned our sovereignty in terms of submarines, we are completely dependent on what happens in the United States as to whether we get them now. The reality is the Americans are not going to make their submarine deficit worse than it is already by giving or selling submarines to Australia and the Aukus legislation actually sets that out quite specifically.
So you know, this is really a case of us being mugged by reality. I mean, there’s a lot of Aukus cheerleaders, and anyone that has any criticism of Aukus is almost described as being unpatriotic. We’ve got to be realistic here.
Key events
‘It is patients who will suffer’: AMA on emergency department wait times
Earlier we brought you the latest quarterly report from the Bureau of Health Information, which shows one in 10 patients are still waiting nearly 11 hours in New South Wales hospital emergency departments despite modest improvements in wait times across the board.
Responding to the figures, the Australian Medical Association NSW president, Michael Bonning, said this should be a wake-up call for the state government.
He called for the next NSW budget to include a substantial increase in funding for the health system:
Our drastically overburdened health workforce cannot continue to perform under the current conditions.
Without an urgent injection of health dollars, it is patients who will suffer as they wait longer in the emergency department and are forced to endure longer stays in hospital.
– with AAP
Caitlin Cassidy
Education union backs NT school funding, with caveats
The Australian Education Union (AEU) has backed a “landmark”’ school funding deal announced this morning between the NT and federal governments – with caveats.
Its federal president, Correna Haythorpe, said the resources currently allocated to Territory schools were “shameful”. NT public schools receive the lowest proportion of Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) funding despite having the highest levels of student need.
This funding is long overdue and will change lives in the NT. The bulk of the funding must be delivered well before 2029 because we know that teachers and students need resources now.
Haythorpe said the commonwealth’s commitment to doubling its funding to 40% of the SRS was a “recognition of its superior revenue raising capacity” for future state agreements, while also demanding the final agreement removed loopholes.
The prime minister must also ensure that the bilateral agreement signed this year removes the loophole in the current agreement that allows the NT to artificially inflate its SRS share by 4% by including non-school costs such as capital depreciation.
That Morrison-era loophole is denying NT public schools $40m a year and Labor was clear in opposition it would eliminate it from future agreements.
Angus Taylor refuses to ‘front run the detail’ of Coalition’s nuclear policy
As the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, flagged during a speech yesterday, the Coalition will soon reveal the “potential host sites” for six nuclear energy plants, suggesting these communities would be offered some kind of incentive.
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, was asked to provide detail around these incentives while speaking on Sky News today, but said:
Well, I’m not going to front run the detail of the policy.
While not providing any details, Taylor said incentives are “pretty common” when major facilities are built in any community, including renewable projects, and that it is “important that that be part of any package”.
Speaking on the fuel efficiency standards proposed by Labor, Taylor was asked if he was open to any kind of concessions. It doesn’t seem as if he is, with Taylor responding:
I’m not going to speculate. I’m going to work with the proposal that we’ve got in front of us, which is completely unacceptable.
Weather warning issued for north-east Queensland
A severe weather warning is in place for the Peninsula and Torres Strait today and early tomorrow, with 24-hour rainfall totals of 150mm to 250mm possible, the Bureau of Meteorology says:
A Severe Weather Warning for heavy rainfall is current for today and into early tomorrow about the Peninsula and Torres Strait. 24 hour rainfall totals of 150 to 250mm are possible. A flood watch is also current in this area. More details: https://t.co/qmCl5AXm8s pic.twitter.com/RfFizVyJf2
— Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland (@BOM_Qld) March 12, 2024
‘We can’t continue to see this recidivism going on and on and on’: NSW on bail changes
The New South Wales police minister, Yasmin Catley, has defended sweeping new laws that would make it harder for teenagers to get bail and would criminalise “posting and boasting” about offences on social media.
These were announced yesterday, as NSW premier Chris Minns also ruled out raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14. Tamsin Rose had all the details yesterday:
Essentially, the Bail Act would be changed to include an extra test for 14- to 18-year-olds charged with committing certain serious break-and-enter or motor vehicle theft offences while on bail for the same offences and seeking further bail.
The changes would mean police, magistrates and judges would need a “high degree of confidence” that a young person would not commit a further serious indictable offence if they were granted bail again. The laws will then be reviewed after 12 months.
Catley was asked why the new laws would work in NSW, given they haven’t worked in other jurisdictions? She told Sunrise:
We’re hopeful that this will actually make a difference because we can’t continue to see this recidivism going on and on and on. We actually have to make sure that we get these kids out of the justice system, that’s the intention here. By having this place-based accommodation with services, we can send kids away from the justice system and get them into education and employment.
The $13.4m pilot program at Moree for bail and support accommodation would be rolled out across the state if successful, Catley said.
It’s not just Moree that’s experiencing these crime waves. There are other areas in rural and remote areas. We’ve got to do something. At the moment, we’re throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at any number of services. But we’re still seeing the crimes increase.
‘There needs to be some form of reliable base-load power’: Coalition on nuclear energy plan
Moving to the Coalition’s energy policy, Jane Hume said it is “very early days” when asked what incentives would be offered to communities that would host up to six nuclear power plants, as proposed by Peter Dutton.
Hume said:
What we want to do is have a conversation with the Australian community about the potential for nuclear power to be put into the energy mix to bring down the cost of electricity in the long term, but to also make sure that it is a reliable source of energy.
Now, there are over 30 countries out there and more than 400 nuclear reactors that already operating today. Those countries that are on a pathway to net zero – sustainable and realistic pathway to net zero – have nuclear energy in their mix. Why would you not include it in your thinking in Australia?
Host Michael Rowland notes that it is “incredibly expensive”, among other things.
Hume said this “remains to be seen” and argued keeping coal fired power stations open is also expensive and “heavily subsidised by governments”.
Rowland questioned this point and asked which power stations the government is wanting to prolong, noting that AGL and Origin Energy have announced or scheduled the closure of their power plants.
Hume responded:
[Coalition energy spokesperson] Ted O’Brien has said … that the government’s renewable energy policy, although well intentioned, will mean that there isn’t reliable base-load power to support it and that there will be blackouts. Now, for that reason alone, there needs to be some form of reliable base-load power. If it’s not gas, let’s face it, the government has made the gas industry walk away from Australia and, you know, prevented that being the sustainable base-load power, well then what is the alternative?
But this argument has been debunked, as our environment reporter Graham Readfearn writes:
‘They’re not my words’: Jane Hume on Sussan Ley byelection tweet
The opposition finance spokesperson, Jane Hume, has faced a grilling over a widely condemned tweet made by Sussan Ley during the Dunkley byelection.
Hume was on ABC News Breakfast earlier, discussing the federal government’s admission it had issued invalid visas to the 149 people released from indefinite immigration detention after the NZYQ case.
You can read the full story on this from Josh Butler below, for all the context:
Host Michael Rowland noted the issue has been highly political, and pointed to a tweet made by Ley, which remains online – he asks Hume if she is happy with this?
Hume:
This is an issue that you have canvassed with Sussan and a number of people [have canvassed] with her … It’s Sussan’s tweet and I don’t want to put words in her mouth [and] they’re not my words, they’re her words and she has continued to support that.
And thus ensued a back-and-forth, where Hume was asked if Ley should take the tweet down? She said:
I would not dream of directing any of my colleagues to how they use their social media.
More from AAP on this:
The New South Wales government says it is working on reducing wait times and improving access to care.
Measures include an emergency department taskforce, boosting staff by making 1,112 temporary nurses permanent and recruiting an additional 1,200 nurses and midwives. About 600 more treatment spaces are planned for western Sydney as well 25 urgent care services to be rolled out across the state.
The health minister, Ryan Park, said while the improvements are promising, too many people are still waiting too long:
We are throwing everything in our ruck sack at improving access and reducing wait times in our hospitals.
This includes boosting staff and infrastructure; but also rolling out urgent care and providing those alternate pathways to care, to treat people outside the hospital; and establishing an ED taskforce to drive improvements in wait times and access to care.
Modest improvement but hospital waits ‘still too long’
One in 10 patients are still waiting nearly 11 hours in New South Wales hospital emergency departments despite modest improvements in wait times across the board, AAP reports.
Hospitals are treating more patients with the most urgent clinical conditions, with a record number of triage 1 and 2 presentations to NSW EDs in October to December 2023, the latest quarterly report from the Bureau of Health Information shows.
Almost 60% of patients spent less than four hours in the ED, a slight improvement to the preceding quarter and this time in 2022.
One in 10 patients spent longer than 10 hours and 30 minutes in the ED, well above pre-pandemic levels.
Of the 195,269 people treated and admitted, 25.4% spent less than four hours in the ED.
Despite a record number of triage 1 and 2 presentations, the data shows a continued improvement in time patients waited to start treatment.
Two in three patients started their ED treatment on time and almost 80% of patients who arrived by ambulance had their care transferred to ED staff within 30 minutes.
The decrease in non-urgent presentations is reflective of more patients seeking care options outside hospital and relieving pressure on EDs, a government spokesperson said.
NT leaders to fast-track $1bn in public school funding
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, was also on ABC RN earlier this morning, discussing the funding package announced for schools in the Northern Territory.
As Caitlin Cassidy reports: prime minister Anthony Albanese, chief minister of the NT Eva Lawler, and education minister Jason Clare and his counterpart Mark Monaghan will sign a statement of intent this morning.
This will outline a $1bn investment that will see all public schools in the NT reach 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) by 2029 – more than two decades earlier than would have been the case under current settings. The SRS is the benchmark for required funding based on student needs.
Speaking on RN, Burney said:
I think it’s astounding for a lot of people in the eastern states to know that children in the Northern Territory, particularly in remote communities, actually do not have a secondary education unless they leave home, Country and family and board in Alice Springs, Katherine or Darwin.
‘We’ve got to get on with it’: Turnbull on fuel standards
Changing topic, and the former PM Malcolm Turnbull has backed the government’s proposed fuel efficiency standards.
He disagreed that the timeline for the standards were too ambitious, and questioned why Australia’s fuel standards should not be the same as the US, China and Europe.
We’ve got to get on with it.
When asked whether the standards would lead to a steep increase in car prices, Turnbull said he doesn’t “buy that”.
Those large cars that you’re talking about … they’re bought in great abundance in North America and they have this higher fuel standard, so I don’t see Americans going away from their huge trucks. So whether you think your trucks are a good idea or not, the Americans have plenty of them – they also have higher fuel standards.
Australia has ‘lost all sovereignty, all agency’: Turnbull on Aukus
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says that Australia is “bopping along as a cork in the maelstrom of American politics” as he continues to criticise the Aukus pillar 1 submarine deal.
Speaking on ABC RN, Turnbull said if the United States doesn’t dramatically increase the pace in which it is producing submarines, there is “no reason to believe that [Australia] will ever get the submarines that were promised under Aukus”.
This is what happens when … a sovereign nation abandons its sovereignty.
He said former PM Scott Morrison made a “terrible mistake” in abandoning the deal with France, where Australia was building the submarines in Australia and “were actually in control of our own destiny”.
But now we have “lost all sovereignty, all agency” under the current Aukus deal, Turnbull argued.
On Aukus pillar 1 we are effectively in conflict with the needs of the US navy, and you know as well as I do the American government, when it comes to a choice between the needs of the US navy and the Australian navy, are always going to back their own.
[There is] an alternative solution, which has been publicly canvassed in Congress, which is what they call a division of labour, and that is where we don’t get any submarines from the United States [and] we would invest in other capabilities and the Americans … would basically provide that submarine protection for us …
I fear today, Patricia, there are some people in Canberra, there are many people that don’t care about sovereignty the way I do and I hope you do, and I hope many of your listeners do.
‘We are completely dependent on what happens in the US’: former PM lashes Aukus submarine deal
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has lashed the Aukus pillar 1 submarine deal, arguing the US is producing half as many as needed and Australia has “abandoned our sovereignty in terms of submarines”.
Speaking to ABC RN about the issue, Turnbull said:
The US navy is trying to increase its submarine fleet actually to meet the rapid growth in the Chinese navy, in particular [with] submarines. To do that to meet its own requirements, it needs to double its current production of Virginia-class submarines. And so, of course, in order to transfer submarines to Australia in the 2030s, three and possibly five under the Aukus pillar 1 deal, they’ve got to increase their production even more.
Now, right at the moment, they’re not only producing about half as many submarines as they believe they need, but they also are not able to maintain the submarines they have …
What does that mean for Australia? It means because the Morrison government, adopted by Albanese, has basically abandoned our sovereignty in terms of submarines, we are completely dependent on what happens in the United States as to whether we get them now. The reality is the Americans are not going to make their submarine deficit worse than it is already by giving or selling submarines to Australia and the Aukus legislation actually sets that out quite specifically.
So you know, this is really a case of us being mugged by reality. I mean, there’s a lot of Aukus cheerleaders, and anyone that has any criticism of Aukus is almost described as being unpatriotic. We’ve got to be realistic here.
US navy to halve submarine procurement in 2025: media reports
The ABC is reporting that the United States will halve next year’s planned procurement of Virginia-class boats, as the defence minister, Richard Marles, says Aukus partners are working “at pace” to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
It says defence budget papers released yesterday show the US navy would order just one of the fast-attack submarines in 2025, rather than two, pushing a projected saving of $US4bn into future years.
Democratic congressman Joe Courtney reportedly warned the decision would have a “profound impact” on both countries’ navies:
If such a cut is actually enacted, it will remove one more attack submarine from a fleet that is already 17 submarines below the Navy’s long-stated requirement of 66.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull is due to speak about this shortly on ABC RN, and we’ll bring you this here on the blog.
Continued from our last post:
The Australian Grape and Wine chief executive, Lee McLean, said the decision was a “positive step” towards resuming trade with what was formerly the largest export market:
We remain cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming decision and will await Mofcom’s (China’s commerce ministry) final determination.
We appreciate the collaborative efforts from both the Australian and Chinese governments, and industry partners, in working towards a resolution.
China lifted tariffs on Australian barley in August last year following a similar process, after Labor paused a WTO dispute in exchange for a review.
Beijing imposed $20bn in sanctions on Australian products during heightened tensions in 2020.
Sanctions worth $2bn remain on wine, rock lobster and some abattoirs.
China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, on Monday said the review was “moving on the right track, in the right direction”.
Senator Don Farrell recently met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, on the sidelines of the WTO’s ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi last month.
– from AAP
China moves to dump tariffs on $1b wine exports
As we just flagged: China has recommended dropping tariffs on Australian wine exports worth $1bn in an interim decision, AAP reports.
Beijing is reviewing the sanctions through a five-month process after the Albanese government agreed to suspend Australia’s dispute lodged with the World Trade Organization until 31 March. The Chinese government yesterday released its interim recommendation that the duties on wine are no longer necessary.
Beijing will announce its final decision later this month, but the move has sparked hope the tariffs will be fully removed.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said the government had stabilised the relationship with China without compromising the nation’s values:
We have delivered on that commitment through calm and consistent dialogue. We continue to press for all remaining trade impediments to be removed.
The trade minister, Don Farrell, said the interim recommendation was a welcome development, and “vindicates the government’s preferred approach of resolving trade issues through dialogue rather than disputation”.
Welcome
Emily Wind
Good morning, and happy Wednesday – welcome back to Australia news live blog! Emily Wind here, I’ll bring you our rolling coverage today.
Making news overnight, China has recommended dropping tariffs on Australian wine exports worth $1bn in an interim decision.
As AAP reports, Beijing is reviewing the sanctions through a five-month process after the Albanese government agreed to suspend Australia’s dispute lodged with the World Trade Organization until 31 March.
The Chinese government yesterday released its interim recommendation that the duties on wine are no longer necessary. Beijing will announce its final decision later this month, but the move has sparked hope the tariffs will be fully removed.
We’ll have more on this shortly, but in the meantime, here is this great piece by Eliza Spencer from our rural network on the issue:
The search is continuing for seven people – including four children – missing amid the heavy rain in Western Australia. Yesterday, police said they held “serious welfare concerns” for the people missing hundreds of kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie, as flooding has cut off road and rail links into the state.
We will bring you the latest on this as we hear further updates today.
See something that needs attention on the blog? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: [email protected].
Let’s get started.
