Clutterham, Claire MP

Ms CLUTTERHAM: Thank you, everyone, for being here today and providing that information to the committee. I just have a couple of questions for Friends of the Earth and then a couple for ACF. Firstly, Friends of the Earth, I can see in the information that we've been provided that you are making the point that the cost of AUKUS is astronomical, and I think it's described as a 'waste of resources'. I did wonder what cost would be acceptable to you for a program such as this. CHAIR: Dr Green, do you want have a go first? Dr Green : Yes. Frankly, I'm not sure that anyone could possibly give an answer to that question. Our concerns range far beyond the expense of the project. But, if we keep it to the cost, it's noted in the submission of Rear Admiral Peter Briggs that defence is suffering because of the money that has to be allocated to AUKUS—other defence projects are suffering. It's inevitable that health and education and everything else that we treasure are going to suffer because of this extraordinary allocation of funding. I'll just conclude with the thought that there needs to be a serious discussion of alternatives. There obviously wasn't a serious discussion of alternatives in the 24 hours that it took a shadow Labor government to endorse Mr Morrison's AUKUS plan several years ago. Well, better late than never. Now is the time for a thorough, ranging inquiry which costs and assesses the pluses and minuses of every possible or reasonable option that we could go down. In terms of alternatives: firstly, alternative submarines—keeping in mind that non-nuclear submarines are vastly cheaper and can probably be delivered more quickly; secondly, alternative technologies; and, thirdly, a more broad-ranging rethinking of a number of the assumptions that underlie defence policy in Australia, such as the US alliance. I'm not sure if that answered your question because I'm not sure that it was an answerable question. But I'll leave it there.