AUKUS public inquiry Q&A with Peter Garrett and Rex Patrick

Peter Garrett, welcome to Cut Through.

Such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

Yeah.

Hi, Crystal.

You are getting down really to the nitty gritty, the final stages of the AUKUS public inquiry now, wrapping up with the final hearings in Canberra and the final report to come out at the end of October.

Maybe to start us off, what made you want to take on the position as the lead commissioner of this inquiry in the first place?

Well, I was asked by the Australian Peace and Security Forum.

But I had thought at the time when the decision was first made by Scott Morrison and then subsequently essentially endorsed by Anthony Albanese that it had been a decision which had been done pretty much without any public scrutiny or debate at all.

Certainly no significant debate in the parliament.

Likewise, probably in the Labor caucus and who knows what happened in the cabinet.

But it was the biggest decision ever that we've made since World War II about a defence issue and certainly in terms of the cost that was slated of $368 billion, which is probably the lower end of what it would cost.

And the fact that it hadn't been fully and properly debated, I felt that this was a really important thing to happen.

And if it wasn't going to happen in the parliament, then the idea of a people's inquiry, a public open inquiry, was very attractive to me and I was very pleased I had the time to do it.

The fact that it hasn't been really well interrogated in the public has been a point of ire among a lot of crikey subscribers and readers.

We have a question from one of them who asks, why do you think that Anthony Albanese did not conduct a thorough investigation into AUKUS after he formed government in 2022, especially given that breathtaking cost of $368 billion? You're saying probably higher than that.

maybe asking you to read some tea leaves a little bit, but do you have any insight into why this hadn't happened before now?

Not really.

I mean, I know as much as anyone else does that's following it from outside the parliament and outside the party.

I think it's pretty clear that at the time Morrison was intending to try and use defence as a wedge against Labor.

That's in the election that took place.

and that Labor decided that they weren't going to permit that to happen.

So they essentially agreed with the idea of AUKUS and endorsed the pact pretty much straight away on the run into the election.

As to why they didn't then take the opportunity, having secured government to essentially have a good boots and braces all in review of AUKUS, I really can't say.

I think that should have definitely happened.

And not only because there's various aspects about the AUKUS deal which have got very large, bold question marks around it, but because that's the appropriate thing to do for an incoming government who has the responsibility of both identifying the national interest, sovereign risks, properly defending the country with the right mix of measures for that, and enabling both the parliament, elected representatives, and then the public to have a say or to have some understanding about an issue of that magnitude.