Of populist Macron, pragmatic Morrison and traitor Turnbull

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s telling off French President Emmanuel Macron for “sledging” Australia comes as an appropriate stand against the French president for failing to acknowledge the exigencies of the Australian predicament given the situation in the Indo-Pacific.

On 1 November, Mr Macron accused the Australian Prime Minister of lying to him about the abrogation of the $66-billion submarine contract in favour of AUKUS. He told the media: “The AUKUS deal was very bad news for France, but not just for France, because I think it’s a very bad news for the credibility of Australia and a very bad news for the trust that great partners can have with the Australians.

“I think this is detrimental to the reputation of your country ( Australia) and your prime minister.”

The very next day, Mr Morrison held a press conference in Glasgow, Scotland to detail his private conversations and text messages with Mr Macron. “I think the statements that were made questioning Australia’s integrity, and the slurs that have been placed on Australia…I’m not going to cop sledging of Australia,” Mr Morrison said at the press conference.

In 2016, France and Australia signed a contract, under which France was to provide Australia with diesel-electric Barracuda submarines for a total of 34 billion Euros (A$55 billion) over a 25-year period.

The project has been the subject of cost blowouts and delays since. And Mr Morrison said, 18 months ago, he became concerned about the challenges faced by the contract. He said he told Mr Macron he believed that the French submarines may not be delivered by 2038. “That would mean that this submarine, when it went in the water, would be obsolete, almost the minute it got wet,” he said.

By September, when the AUKUS agreement was signed, Mr Morrison said he tried to call Mr Macron to directly inform him of his decision to quit the French contract. But he said the French president did not make himself available, and so he sent Mr Macron a text message expressing concern about whether the contract would be proceeding or not.

Whether it is Mr Macron’s integrity that is at stake or Mr Morrison’s, the French submarine deal was a contract, and could be cancelled at any time with due penalties being paid. Mr Macron may have the French elections in mind, by raking up the issue about the cancellation of the submarine contract. He also should have restrained his excoriation of Australia looking at the bigger picture of the imperatives in the Indo-Pacific and the belligerence of China. Australia can ill-afford to have an obsolete submarine on its hands 20 years from now, when it can get a handier version from the signing of AUKUS.

AUKUS is a new three-way strategic defence alliance between Australia, the UK and US, initially to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, but also to work together in the Indo-Pacific region, where the rise of China is seen as an increasing threat, and develop wider technologies. The deal marks the first time the US has shared nuclear propulsion technology with an ally, apart from the UK.

Nuclear-propelled submarines in this context have longer range, are quicker and are harder to detect. But the UK national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, made it clear, at the onset, that AUKUS is about more than a class of submarine, describing the pact as “perhaps the most significant capability collaboration in the world anywhere in the past six decades”.

The deal includes not only eight nuclear submarines, but also cruise, hypersonic, and precision-strike missile technology, which is very pertinent in times when China aggressively claims 90% of the South China Sea as its waterway, and is increasingly implying that it may invade Taiwan.

The deal sets Australia on track to become only the seventh country in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines. The others include the US, the UK, Russia, China, France, and India.

Mr Morrison copped criticism not only from France over the French submarine deal, but also from within Australia. Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese said “Australians need a leader who can be trusted.” And, former Prime Minister Mr Malcolm Turnbull has been opportunistic in his diatribe on Mr Morrison at every occasion that manifests itself. Mr Turnbull proudly claimed that he had spoken to French President Macron in the aftermath of AUKUS, and praised Macron as “one of the great leaders of our times” and “an enormously important figure in global politics and particularly in Europe”.

He said Morrison’s decision not to be candid with his French counterpart would erode Australia’s reputation for trustworthiness in the world, and that had negative national security implications. “This is an appalling episode in Australia’s international affairs and the consequences of it will endure to our disadvantage for a very long time,” he said at an hour-long news conference.

Mr Turnbull has proved to be a bitter traitor, to the nation and to the Liberal Party, ever since he was shuffled out of Liberal leadership and prime ministership in 2018. He has severely undermined Australia in his excoriation of Morrison, proving callous to the nation’s aspirations through his sympathy for Macron, without fairly judging Mr Morrison’s predicament. In the aftermath of AUKUS and the abrogation of the French deal, he has vindicated Mr Macron by stating: “Scott always has a reputation for telling lies.”

Well Mr Malcolm Turnbull, your insincerity, vindictiveness and rancour were evident already when you did not support Liberal MP Dave Sharma at the Wentworth polls in 2018. Your support of France against Australia is nothing short of treason. Your attempts to subvert the Liberal Party and Mr Morrison have been showcased in your visiting Glasgow for COP26 in a bid to underline Morrison’s tepidity to climate change, when you had no business being there. And you have proved to be a traitor to the Party that you got so much out of, by giving the Labour Party free gifts by way of your egoistic hypocritical postures.