‘Not the deal promised’: Labor’s Ed Husic questions Aukus pact that will deliver secondhand subs | Aukus

Labor MP Ed Husic has warned Australia needs a backup plan for the Aukus submarine deal, arguing that the stagnation of American production and the “transactional nature” of the Trump administration are putting the multibillion-dollar defense deal at risk.

Defense minister Richard Marles this week agreed to US demands that Australia accept three second-hand Virginia-class nuclear submarines rather than a combination of new and old ships.

Husic spoke at a closed-door meeting of the Labor Party caucus on Tuesday.

It was the most significant domestic criticism of the $368 billion deal agreed by the Morrison government in 2021 and endorsed by the then Labor opposition since heated debates at the ALP national conference three years ago. Labor ultimately maintained its support for the decades-old agreement.

Husic said U.S. submarine production rates were too low for Australia to realistically expect the boats to be delivered in the early 2030s.

The deal requires the sitting US president to agree to release the submarines on the condition that the US has sufficient supplies for its own navy, even as Australia pays to increase production.

“We must be clear as a nation that we cannot deliver the agreement we were promised,” Husic said.

“Given how transactional the Trump administration is, you can almost imagine them saying ‘we give you these, this is what you do with them,’ so there’s an active sovereignty issue here.

“This will not be a renegotiation; this is a matter of production rates and whether we can get them. What are the odds? What is plan B?”

US shipyards currently produce between 1.1 and 1.2 Virginia-class submarines each year; This is well below the annual target of 2.33% needed for the deal to go ahead as planned.

Husic said there was unrest about Aukus at the general level of the party. He claimed that Marles was forced by the United States to say that he was happy with the new regulations after meetings with his counterpart Pete Hegseth in Singapore over the weekend.

“There’s a problem with this [the] Reality… confronts us as to whether we can get the new deal that is presented to us based on what is happening in the United States,” Husic said.

The former cabinet minister was sacked in a factional deal orchestrated by Marles after the 2025 elections. He is close to former prime minister Paul Keating, one of the biggest critics of the Aukus plan.

Shadow defense secretary James Paterson said Husic’s intervention represented “a complete Labor revolt”. Paterson asked Marles to bring his colleague into line and reaffirm the government’s commitment to Aukus.

“It is absolutely legitimate to ask questions about how this government will deliver Aukus and the details of Aukus,” the Liberal MP said.

“What is far more worrying is that a former cabinet minister is still completely questioning the merits of Aukus at a Labor Party meeting.”

Paterson questioned why second-hand submarines would be cheaper and easier to use, as Marles claimed. “If that’s the case, why wasn’t this the optimal path three years ago?” he said.

Following meetings on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue on Sunday, Marles said servicing and training efforts would be streamlined because Australian crews would not be operating two different American-built submarines before the special SSN Aukus model enters service in 2042.

The first Virginia-class aircraft from the US were scheduled to arrive in Australia in 2032; another would arrive every four years before the Australian-made model was ready for operation.

Husic’s comments came on the same day former Labor Minister Peter Garrett was announced as the chair of a public inquiry into Aukus, which is backed by unions and non-profit groups.

Former Western Australian Labor premier Carmen Lawrence and former defense force chief Chris Barrie were among the commissioners selected for the inquiry, which has no parliamentary review.

Garrett stated that the deal had not been properly scrutinized by parliament, calling it “the most significant and expensive decision ever made by any Australian government in the modern era”.

Opposition to Aukus continues to harden within the wider Labor movement, setting the stage for an internal fight at the party’s national conference in Adelaide.

Last month’s motion calling on the Albanian government to review the security agreement received support from the Victorian branch for the second year in a row.

The grassroots Labor Against War action group is pressing to remove all references to Aukus from the national platform up for debate at the July conference.

The group’s consultation on the draft platform, seen by Guardian Australia, aims to include a reference to the “US-Israeli illegal war on Iran” and ensure Labor will not use military force in an armed conflict “inconsistent with international law”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Tuesday Labor was determined to deliver Aukus.

Arthur Rorris, secretary of the South Coast Labor Council, which opposes the establishment of a nuclear submarine base at Kembla Harbour, said the proposed base was never intended for Australian submarines but “will be handed over to the US navy as a staging point for its 7th fleet”.

“Building submarines for Australia has never been at the top of Washington’s agenda; creating a base for forever wars certainly is,” Rorris said over the weekend.

– Additional reporting by Ben Doherty